Title: Inline bandwidth measurement techniques for gigabit networks

Authors: Cao Le Thanh Man, Go Hasegawa, Masayuki Murata

Addresses: Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, T5600043 Osaka-Fu, Toyonaka-Shi, Machikaneyamacho 1-32, Japan. ' Cybermedia Center, Osaka University, T5600043 Osaka-Fu, Toyonaka-Shi, Machikaneyamacho 1-32, Japan. ' Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University, T5600043 Osaka-Fu, Toyonaka-Shi, Machikaneyamacho 1-32, Japan

Abstract: We introduce an inline measurement method that can overcome difficulties in measurement task in high-speed network environment, such as short packet transmission intervals and Interrupt Coalescence function deployed in the high-speed Network Interface Cards. The method adjusts the number of packets involved in a packet burst of an active TCP connection, and utilises the inter-intervals of the bursts of the corresponding ACK packets for bandwidth measurement. Experiment results show that the proposed inline measurement method can measure the bandwidth in the network paths at least 1-Gbps or higher.

Keywords: gigabit networks; available bandwidth; capacity; TCP; inline measurement; interrupt coalescence; high-speed networks; transmission control protocol; packet bursts; bandwidth measurement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPT.2008.020466

International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology, 2008 Vol.3 No.2, pp.81 - 94

Published online: 27 Sep 2008 *

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