High time-resolution measurement and analysis of LAN traffic: Implications for LAN interconnection

In order to study the interactions between LANs and proposed interconnection networks, a high time-resolution hardware monitor for Ethernet LANs is presented that avoids the shortcomings of previous monitoring tools, such as traffic burst clipping and timestamp jitter. Using data recorded by a monitor for several hundred million Ethernet packets, an overview of the short-range time correlations in external LAN traffic is presented. The analysis shows that LAN traffic is extremely bursty across time domains spanning six orders of magnitude. This behavior is compared with simple formal traffic models. The results suggest that the pronounced short-term traffic correlations, together with the extensive time regime of traffic burstiness, strongly influence the patterns of loss and delay induced by LAN interconnection