On performance prediction of address lookup algorithms of IP routers through simulation and analysis techniques

Many address lookup methods on IP routers have been recently proposed to improve the packet forwarding capability; nevertheless, their performance prediction is very limited because of lack of consideration of actual traffic characteristics in their evaluations. It is necessary to consider actual traffic to predict more realistic performance in routers, especially in the case of layer 3 and 4 switches whose performance is more influenced by flow characteristics. In this paper, we propose new methods for predicting the router´s performance based on the statistical analysis of the Internet traffic. We also present an example of its application to the existing table lookup algorithm, and show that simulation results based on our method can provide accurate performance prediction.