Design and Deployment of a Passive Monitoring Infrastructure

Abstract— This paper presents the architecture of a passive monitoring system installed within the Sprint IP backbone network. This system differs from other packet monitoring systems in that it collects packet-level traces from multiple links within the network and provides the capability to correlate the data using highly accurate GPS timestamps. After a thorough description of the monitoring systems, we demonstrate the system’s capabilities and the diversity of the results that can be obtained from the collected data. These results include workload characterization, packet size analysis, and packet delay incurred through a single backbone router. We conclude with lessons learned from the development of the monitoring infrastructure and present future research goals.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2001
• Where: IWDC
• Authors: Chuck Fraleigh, Christophe Diot, Bryan Lyles, Sue B. Moon, Philippe Owezarski, Dina Papagiannaki, Fouad A. Tobagi
• Keywords: Communications, IWDC 2001, Monitoring Systems, Packet Monitoring Systems, Sprint IP Backbone