Equilibrium analysis through separation of user and network behavior

Internet complexity makes reasoning about traffic equilibrium difficult, partly because users react to congestion. This difficulty calls for an analytic technique that is simple, yet have enough details to capture user behavior and flexibly address a broad range of issues. This paper presents such a technique. It treats traffic equilibrium as a balance between an inflow controlled by users, and an outflow controlled by the network (link capacity, congestion avoidance, etc.). This decomposition is demonstrated with a surfing session model, and validated with a traffic trace and NS2 simulations. The technique's accessibility and breadth are illustrated through an analysis of several issues concerning the location, stability, robustness and dynamics of traffic equilibrium.

[1]  Amy Csizmar Dalal,et al.  Improving user-perceived performance at a World Wide Web server , 2001, GLOBECOM'01. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (Cat. No.01CH37270).

[2]  Steven H. Low,et al.  Optimization flow control—I: basic algorithm and convergence , 1999, TNET.

[3]  Virgílio A. F. Almeida,et al.  A methodology for workload characterization of E-commerce sites , 1999, EC '99.

[4]  Hyoung-Kee Choi,et al.  A behavioral model of Web traffic , 1999, Proceedings. Seventh International Conference on Network Protocols.

[5]  B. Engquist,et al.  Mathematics Unlimited: 2001 and Beyond , 2001 .

[6]  Marco Ajmone Marsan,et al.  On the use of fixed point approximations to study reliable protocols over congested links , 2003, GLOBECOM '03. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37489).

[7]  Wei Tsang Ooi,et al.  SAX : A Tool for Studying Congestion-induced Surfer Behavior , 2006 .

[8]  Sally Floyd,et al.  Promoting the use of end-to-end congestion control in the Internet , 1999, TNET.

[9]  Dakshi Agrawal,et al.  Inferring client response time at the web server , 2002, SIGMETRICS '02.

[10]  Carey L. Williamson,et al.  Internet Web servers: workload characterization and performance implications , 1997, TNET.

[11]  Christophe Diot,et al.  An approach to alleviate link overload as observed on an IP backbone , 2003, IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428).

[12]  Konstantina Papagiannaki,et al.  Bridging router performance and queuing theory , 2004, SIGMETRICS '04/Performance '04.

[13]  Kun-Chan Lan,et al.  Rapid model parameterization from traffic measurements , 2002, TOMC.

[14]  Gustavo de Veciana,et al.  Enhancing both network and user performance for networks supporting best effort traffic , 2004, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[15]  Mark Crovella,et al.  Self - similarity in World Wide Web: Evidence and possible causes , 1997 .

[16]  Krishna P. Gummadi,et al.  An analysis of Internet content delivery systems , 2002, OPSR.

[17]  Srinivasan Seshan,et al.  Selfish behavior and stability of the internet:: a game-theoretic analysis of TCP , 2002, SIGCOMM '02.

[18]  Norbert Vicari,et al.  Measuring Internet User Traffic Behavior Dependent on Access Speed , 1999 .

[19]  Alexandre Proutière,et al.  Statistical bandwidth sharing: a study of congestion at flow level , 2001, SIGCOMM.

[20]  Bengt Ahlgren,et al.  Using empirical distributions to characterize Web client traffic and to generate synthetic traffic , 2000, Globecom '00 - IEEE. Global Telecommunications Conference. Conference Record (Cat. No.00CH37137).

[21]  Ray Jain,et al.  The art of computer systems performance analysis - techniques for experimental design, measurement, simulation, and modeling , 1991, Wiley professional computing.

[22]  Anja Feldmann.  BLT: Bi-Layer Tracing of HTTP and TCP/IP , 2000, Comput. Networks.

[23]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  On the TCP-Friendliness of VoIP Traffic , 2006, Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM 2006. 25TH IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications.

[24]  Eric Anderson,et al.  On the stability of adaptive routing in the presence of congestion control , 2003, IEEE INFOCOM 2003. Twenty-second Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37428).

[25]  Paul Barford,et al.  Generating representative Web workloads for network and server performance evaluation , 1998, SIGMETRICS '98/PERFORMANCE '98.

[26]  Eduardo Casilari-Pérez,et al.  Characterisation of Web traffic , 2001, GLOBECOM'01. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (Cat. No.01CH37270).

[27]  K. T. Ko,et al.  Optimization of telephone networks in developing nations with example , 1990, IEEE TENCON'90: 1990 IEEE Region 10 Conference on Computer and Communication Systems. Conference Proceedings.

[28]  Frank Kelly,et al.  Mathematical Modelling of the Internet , 2001 .

[29]  Thomas Bonald,et al.  Statistical bandwidth sharing: a study of congestion at flow level , 2001, SIGCOMM.

[30]  Bogdan M. Wilamowski,et al.  The Transmission Control Protocol , 2005, The Industrial Information Technology Handbook.

[31]  Zhen Liu,et al.  A bandwidth sharing theory for a large number of HTTP-like connections , 2002, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[32]  Laurent Massoulié,et al.  Farsighted users harness network time-diversity , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[33]  Philippe Robert,et al.  The impact of reneging in processor sharing queues , 2006, SIGMETRICS '06/Performance '06.

[34]  Adam Wierman,et al.  Open Versus Closed: A Cautionary Tale , 2006, NSDI.

[35]  Dario Rossi,et al.  User patience and the Web: a hands-on investigation , 2003, GLOBECOM '03. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (IEEE Cat. No.03CH37489).

[36]  Thomas Bonald,et al.  Congestion at flow level and the impact of user behaviour , 2003, Comput. Networks.

[37]  Gustavo de Veciana,et al.  Bandwidth sharing: the role of user impatience , 2001, GLOBECOM'01. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (Cat. No.01CH37270).

[38]  Constantinos Dovrolis,et al.  Measuring the Congestion Responsiveness of Internet Traffic , 2007, PAM.

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

[40]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Fixed point approximations for TCP behavior in an AQM network , 2001, SIGMETRICS '01.

[41]  Bruce A. Mah,et al.  An empirical model of HTTP network traffic , 1997, Proceedings of INFOCOM '97.

[42]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Modeling TCP Reno performance: a simple model and its empirical validation , 2000, TNET.

[43]  Helmut Hlavacs,et al.  Modeling user behavior: a layered approach , 1999, MASCOTS '99. Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems.