A measurement study on the impact of routing events on end-to-end internet path performance

Abstract

Extensive measurement studies have shown that end-to-end Internet path performance degradation is correlated with routing dynamics. However, the root cause of the correlation between routing dynamics and such performance degradation is poorly understood. In particular, how do routing changes result in degraded end-to-end path performance in the first place? How do factors such as topological properties, routing policies, and iBGP configurations affect the extent to which such routing events can cause performance degradation? Answers to these questions are critical for improving network performance.In this paper, we conduct extensive measurement that involves both controlled routing updates through two tier-1 ISPs and active probes of a diverse set of end-to-end paths on the Internet. We find that routing changes contribute to end-to-end packet loss significantly. Specifically, we study failover events in which a link failure leads to a routing change and recovery events in which a link repair causes a routing change. In both cases, it is possible to experience data plane performance degradation in terms of increased long loss burst as well as forwarding loops. Furthermore, we find that common routing policies and iBGP configurations of ISPs can directly affect the end-to-end path performance during routing changes. Our work provides new insights into potential measures that network operators can undertake to enhance network performance.