Measuring the Internet in real time.

Scott Kirkpatrick, Systems Group (HUJI), and EVERGROW partners: DIMES (TAU) and ETOMIC (Budapest, Navarra)

The problem

Isnt measuring the Internet like, sooo

last century??
No, conceptual and practical problems remain; new ones are becoming apparent. Peer to peer applications, soon to accommodate streaming New clients: DSL, cable, hotspots, blackberries, cellphones with cameras, sensor networks Making information about uses of digital content accessible and relevant to scholars from disciplines other than computer science.

Some history

Measurement activities

Analysis largely based on single snapshots:

Alta Vista, Alexa late 1990s

Single source searches for topology RouteViews (U Oregon) takes union of major BGP tables No one studied bandwidth Some work became proprietary (Google, et al.), other activities lost in the dot.com meltdown (DEC/Compaq SRC web archeology tools)

Accomplishments to date:

Power Laws

Growth plus preferential attachment is sufficient Data has been questioned, alternate models
Seen as a percolation process Two attacks random failure, targeted DOS Yet 11/13 DNS servers recently were brought down, and internet continued to function.

Robustness and reliability

Analysis of strong connectivity of content

Todays concerns, e.g., content distribution

How to assure that fresh copies of a large piece of information reach users around the world? (news, movies, catalogs, software releases). Answer will involve spreading copies around. Classic (Valliant) multicast strategy always start with a leap into the complete unknown, then proceed greedily. Peer to Peer approaches redistribute the servers work by having recipients provide what they have to subsequent requesters. But they greatly INCREASE the load on networks. JULIA attempts to send the least information over the longest links, most information exchanged between nearby clients.

How to know enough about the instantaneous properties of the internet to make this possible?

Todays measurement activities are different

Todays issues are not connectivity to the backbone, but among the leaves. Not characteristics of the distribution tree, but of the mesh that links neighbors in a single geography.

ETOMIC approach for bandwidth

Use GPS timers, not network time signal Carefully timed packet train creates momentary overload Chirping them allows identification of the capacity

15 systems came up in 2004, deployed across Europe

HUJIs is in ROSS 1st floor, disguised as a PlanetLab station

Manage experiments from server in Navarra, Spain Present status can see time of flight from 70 meters to 3000 km.

Distributed Internet MEasurement and Simulation

Let the network measure itself Convince people to download lightweight client, provide measurement scripts from central server (@Home) Fly under the radar of network administrators

Today we initiate one traceroute request every 30 sec.

Client is Java/Windows. Linux and Mac clients under construction. DIMES website provides competitive stats on success of each agent Operational since 1 Sept 2004.

DIMES growth curve

500 agents

Still finding ~1000 links/week. Not steady state. Agents increasing, and new scripts are constantly being introduced.

Power laws are real, seen in AS graph

Comparison with BGP data

BGP ~18,000 ASs, DIMES sees only 14,500 DIMES has >12,000 edges not in BGP BGP has ~7000 edges not yet in DIMES map

Joining the two datasets, we see <ngbrs> of 6 or more, definitely not a tree.

Now assign sites to their k-shells

Find all sites with k ngbrs or less and remove them. Continue until only sites with >k ngbrs remain. Whats left is the (k+1)-core. Sites in the k-core, not in the (k+1)-core are the k-shell. The k-core is w.h.p k-connected (at least on random graphs). K-core is found in linear time. K-connectivity has linear proof only for k<4.

K-shells also follow power law

K-shell membership suggests roles for sites

Highest k: DNS, Akamai; medium k is ripe for peer to peer participation. At least 21 distinct routes connect all the DNS servers in the world.

Current status and next steps

Currently 500 agents, 45 countries, all continents > 100,000 measurements/day Most detailed AS-level map ever, still growing

Each week captures ~2/3 of the whole map, so dynamics is accessible

Refining the analysis to resolve POPs

To achieve 2000 agents (YE2005), 10000 (YE2006), 50000 (YE2007) we will add function, such as: Choose best download site; measure your ISP Internet Weather reports Smart P2P clients eMule first Virus-immune system

Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Canada China Czech Republic Denmark Egypt Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hong Kong Hungary India Israel Italy Japan Korea (Republic of) Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg N/A Namibia

Agents by Country

Den. Fr. USA Ger. Hun.

Israel UK
Sweden

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