Effects of upper‐layer protocols on the self‐similarity of network traffic

Abstract

AbstractRecent research has suggested that traffic measured in LANs and WANs is self‐similar. However, no one has clarified why self‐similarity occurs in traffic on networks or how the self‐similarity of traffic affects network performance. In addition, no research has been done on how the self‐similarity of traffic affects the transfer delay or throughput for files, including retransmission processing due to upper‐layer protocols, or on what kinds of effects a user experiences in terms of network performance. Therefore, in this paper the authors clarify through simulations the causes of self‐similarity in the traffic flowing through a network using TCP/IP in the upper layer. In addition, the authors also evaluate how the self‐similarity of traffic affects the packet transfer delay, packet loss probability, and other aspects of network performance. Furthermore, the authors consider how the self‐similarity of traffic impacts on the network performance a user experiences. The results show that the self‐similarity of traffic is affected by the packet loss probability in switches and that the self‐similarity of traffic on a network is preserved when TCP/IP control is used in the upper layer. In addition, the authors show that although average network performance, such as the average transfer delay for files and the effective throughput are not affected much by self‐similarity, the 99.9% transfer delay for files is significantly impacted by self‐similarity. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 84(7): 19–30, 2001