Comparing Probe- and Router-Based Packet-Loss Measurement

  • Authors:
  • Paul Barford;Joel Sommers

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Wisconsin at Madison;University of Wisconsin at Madison

  • Venue:
  • IEEE Internet Computing
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Empirical analysis of Internet traffic characteristics should not be biased by the measurement methodology used to gather data.This article compares probe- (active) and router-based (passive) methods for measuring packet loss both in the laboratory and in a wide-area network. The laboratory case study demonstrates the accuracy of passive Simple Network Measurement Protocol (SNMP) measurements at low loss rates; the wide-area experiments show that active-probe loss-rate measurements don't correlate with those measured by SNMP from routers in a live network.This case study's findings also reveal that common methods for active probing for packet loss suffer from high variance and from the effects of end-host interface loss.