Detecting and measuring asymmetric links in an IP network

Author

Jiang, Wenyu ; Williams, Timothy F.

Author_Institution

Columbia Univ., NY, USA

Volume

3

fYear

1999

fDate

6/21/1905 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1727

Abstract

The rapid growth of Internet traffic has made it important to pinpoint network bottlenecks. Measuring link bandwidths can help identifying such bottlenecks. Existing bandwidth measurement tools such as Pathchar, Bing and Bprobe assume symmetric links. But as ADSL lines, cable modems, satellite links, and 56 K modems gain popularity, it becomes necessary to consider asymmetric links. We present an algorithm that can measure each hop´s link bandwidth in both directions in an IP network. Hence it is trivial to detect link asymmetry. We performed several experiments to validate our algorithm. We also discuss factors that can adversely affect the precision and/or correctness of bandwidth measurement, and suggest some possible solutions

Keywords

Internet; digital subscriber lines; modems; satellite links; telecommunication traffic; transport protocols; ADSL lines; Bing; Bprobe; IP network; Internet traffic; Pathchar; asymmetric links detection; asymmetric links measurement; bandwidth measurement tools; cable modems; experiments; link bandwidth measurement; modems; network bottlenecks; satellite links; symmetric links; Bandwidth; IP networks; Intelligent networks; Internet; Linearity; Modems; Propagation delay; Satellites; Telecommunication traffic; Traffic control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Global Telecommunications Conference, 1999. GLOBECOM '99

Print_ISBN

0-7803-5796-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/GLOCOM.1999.832456

Filename

832456