THE ANALOGIES OF HIGHWAY AND COMPUTER NETWORK TRAFFIC

In this study we compare the characteristics of highway and computer network traffic in a simple topology. The goal is to extract some common features and to find out to which degree these systems can be regarded as analogous so that powerful tools developed for the description of highway traffic, such as cellular automata models could be applied for the case of information packet flows as well. We present phase diagrams of computer network traffic that show similar qualitative features as the one car and aggregated traffic fundamental diagrams of highway traffic and make the first step towards developing cellular automata describing data flow in communication networks. One of the great advantages of such models over detailed microscopic network simulations would be their simplicity which could admit the performance tests and modeling even of huge sized networks in a reasonable time.

[1]  M. Lighthill,et al.  On kinematic waves I. Flood movement in long rivers , 1955, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[2]  H. Takayasu,et al.  Dynamic phase transition observed in the Internet traffic flow , 2000 .

[3]  Michael Schreckenberg,et al.  A cellular automaton model for freeway traffic , 1992 .

[4]  H. Takayasu,et al.  1/f NOISE IN A TRAFFIC MODEL , 1993 .

[5]  Stephen Wolfram,et al.  Theory and Applications of Cellular Automata , 1986 .

[6]  Kensuke Fukuda,et al.  Origin of critical behavior in Ethernet traffic , 2000 .

[7]  T. Musha,et al.  The 1/f Fluctuation of a Traffic Current on an Expressway , 1976 .

[8]  Azer Bestavros,et al.  Self-similarity in World Wide Web traffic: evidence and possible causes , 1997, TNET.

[9]  A. Schadschneider,et al.  Statistical physics of vehicular traffic and some related systems , 2000, cond-mat/0007053.

[10]  Ricard V. Solé,et al.  Phase Transitions in a Model of Internet Traffic , 2000 .

[11]  D. de Cogan,et al.  Cellular Automata Modelling of Physical Systems, by Bastien Chopard & Michel Droz, Cambridge University Press (Aléa Saclay Collection), 336 pp., ISBN 0‐521‐46168‐5, hardback, £55 , 2000 .

[12]  Toru Ohira,et al.  PHASE TRANSITION IN A COMPUTER NETWORK TRAFFIC MODEL , 1998 .

[13]  R. Dickman,et al.  Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions in Lattice Models , 1999 .

[14]  Wilhelm Leutzbach,et al.  Introduction to the Theory of Traffic Flow , 1987 .

[15]  Misako Takayasu,et al.  Phase transition in a computer network model , 1998 .

[16]  Dejan S. Milojicic,et al.  Networking , 2012, ATZelektronik worldwide.

[17]  W. Richard Stevens,et al.  TCP Slow Start, Congestion Avoidance, Fast Retransmit, and Fast Recovery Algorithms , 1997, RFC.

[18]  E. G. Campari,et al.  A cellular automata model for highway traffic , 2000 .

[19]  Robert Herman,et al.  Kinetic theory of vehicular traffic , 1971 .

[20]  A. Schadschneider.  Statistical Physics of Traffic Flow , 2000, cond-mat/0007418.

[21]  Misako Takayasu,et al.  Critical behaviors and 1/Φ noise in information traffic , 1996 .

[22]  Tamás Vicsek,et al.  Traffic models with disorder , 1994 .

[23]  R. Wilder,et al.  Wide-area Internet traffic patterns and characteristics , 1997, IEEE Netw..

[24]  A. Barabasi,et al.  Scale-free characteristics of random networks: the topology of the world-wide web , 2000 .

[25]  Walter Willinger,et al.  On the self-similar nature of Ethernet traffic , 1993, SIGCOMM '93.

[26]  I Csabai,et al.  1/f noise in computer network traffic , 1994 .

[27]  G. G. Stokes.  "J." , 1890, The New Yale Book of Quotations.

[28]  T. V. Lakshman,et al.  The performance of TCP/IP for networks with high bandwidth-delay products and random loss , 1997, TNET.

[29]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Modeling TCP throughput: a simple model and its empirical validation , 1998, SIGCOMM '98.

[30]  Dirk Helbing,et al.  Granular and Traffic Flow ’99: Social, Traffic, and Granular Dynamics , 2000 .