1st International Conference on Integrated Internet Ad hoc and Sensor Networks

Research Article

Divide and conquer: PC-based packet trace replay at OC-48 speeds

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/TRIDNT.2005.18,
        author={Tao  Ye and Darryl  Veitch and Gianluca  Iannaccone and Supratik  Bhattacharyya},
        title={Divide and conquer: PC-based packet trace replay at OC-48 speeds},
        proceedings={1st International Conference on Integrated Internet Ad hoc and Sensor Networks},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={TRIDENTCOM},
        year={2005},
        month={3},
        keywords={},
        doi={10.1109/TRIDNT.2005.18}
    }
    
  • Tao Ye
    Darryl Veitch
    Gianluca Iannaccone
    Supratik Bhattacharyya
    Year: 2005
    Divide and conquer: PC-based packet trace replay at OC-48 speeds
    TRIDENTCOM
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/TRIDNT.2005.18
Tao Ye1,*, Darryl Veitch2,*, Gianluca Iannaccone3,*, Supratik Bhattacharyya1,*
  • 1: Sprint ATL, 1 Adrian Ct., Burlingame, CA, USA
  • 2: Australian Research Council Special Research, Center for Ultra Broadband Information Networks, Electrical & Electronic Eng. Department, University of Melbourne, Australia
  • 3: Intel Research Cambridge, 15 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FD, UK
*Contact email: tye@sprintlabs.com, dveitch@unimelb.edu.au, gianluca.iannaccone@intel.com, supratik@sprintlabs.com

Abstract

Today's Internet backbone networking devices need to be tested under realistic traffic conditions at transmission rates of OC-48 and above. While commercially available synthetic traffic generators are capable of keeping up with high transmission rates, they fail to produce realistic mixes of flow, packet and address arrival patterns. We explore the alternative of replaying real packet traces from high-speed links using multiple commodity PCs equipped with lower-speed network interfaces. Such an approach is inherently cost-effective because of the use of commodity hardware and can scale up to any desired transmission rate. We first examine how to split a trace among multiple PCs for the purpose of replaying and validate our technique using simulations. We use a wavelet 'spectrum' or energy plot for this purpose which enables traffic processes to be viewed simultaneously on many time-scales. Then we present an implementation using Linux PCs with gigabit Ethernet interfaces to replay OC-48 packet traces from the Sprint backbone. Our results show that the replayed trace is very similar to the original trace at most time scales. We are also able to pinpoint the specific system components that contributed to the replay inaccuracy, as well as identify several important challenges that remain to be explored in-depth.