Performance improvement of payload signature-based traffic classification system using application traffic temporal locality

Traffic classification is a preliminary and essential step for providing stable network services and efficient network resource management. However, the payload signature-based method has a major drawback when used in high-speed network environment; it has a lower processing speed than other classification methods. This is despite the fact that it has the highest performance in terms of accuracy, classification completeness, and practicality. In this paper, we propose a cache-based traffic classification method that uses application traffic temporal locality and an efficient cache management system to improve the processing speed of the payload signature-based traffic classification. The proposed method achieves an approximately 10-fold increase in processing speed and a 10% improvement in classification completeness over the payload-based classification system.