Comparative Analysis of the Internet AS-Level Topologies Extracted from Different Data Sources

We calculate vital statistics of Internet AS-level topologies extracted from the four data sources used by the research community: traceroute measurements, BGP tables, BGP updates, and WHOIS database. We find that topologies derived from BGP tables and BGP updates are virtually identical, but differ from the traceroute topology in terms of the vital statistics that we present in this paper. The WHOIS topology is substantially different from the three other topology graphs. We introduce the concept of dimensionality of graph randomness to evaluate the accuracy of topology generators. We show that power-law random graph generators cannot capture the full spectrum of critical topological characteristics of tracerouteand BGP-derived graphs. However, the random graph model reproducing the joint degree distribution of the respective graphs (traceroute, BGP, WHOIS) better approximates the actual topology for traceroute data than for the other data sources. These observations have direct implications for the development of new and credibility of existing network topology generators. Finally, we release to the community both the input topologies and the output of our calculations, which will allow researchers to make a more informed selection of topology data for their specific needs.

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