The need for an intelligent measurement plane: The example of time-variant CDN policies

In this paper we characterize how web-based services are delivered by large organizations in today´s Internet. Taking advantage of two week-long data sets separated in time by 10 months and reporting the web activity of more than 10,000 ADSL residential customers, we identify the services offered by large organizations like Google, Akamai and Amazon. We then compare the evolution of both policies used to serve requests, and the infrastructure they use to match the users´ demand. Results depict an overcrowded scenario in constant evolution. Big-players are more and more responsible for the majority of the volume and a plethora of other organizations offering similar or more specific services through different CDNs and traffic policies. Unfortunately, no standard tools and methodologies are available to capture and expose the hidden properties of this in constant evolution picture. A deeper understanding of such dynamics is however fundamental to improve the performance of current and future Internet. To this extend, we claim the need for a Internet-wide, standard, flexible and intelligent measurement plane to be added to the current Internet infrastructure.