JP2010233272A - Method and device for estimating tcp communication quality - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a TCP communication quality estimating method for estimating TCP throughput, while reducing a measuring load on a network. <P>SOLUTION: In a TCP communication quality estimating method for estimating a communication quality of forward TCP communication from a transmission source to a termination destination, when TCP throughput of backward TCP communication measured at a certain point in time is taken as TCP_thruput_rev(t), a round-trip delay time between the transmission source and the termination destination is taken as RTT(t) and a packet loss rate is taken as p_loss(t), at the transmission source, TCP throughput TCP_estl(t) is estimated using a function F(RTT(t), p_loss(t)) from the round-trip delay time RTT(t) and the packet loss rate p_loss(t) and forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput-est(t) is estimated using a function G(TCP_estl(t), TCP_thruput_rev(t)). <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2011,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a TCP communication quality estimation method and a TCP communication quality estimation apparatus, and more particularly to a technique for managing a communication quality state of an IP network.

As IP networks are widely used, there is an increasing demand for communication quality assurance on IP networks. Accordingly, it is important to measure the traffic flowing through the network and grasp the current communication quality state. In particular, a technique for measuring quality at a user flow level that directly represents the quality experienced by the user (the flow here refers to a TCP connection) has attracted attention.
However, in order to measure the user flow communication quality, it is necessary to capture all the packets flowing through the line and analyze the packet header information and the flow information. However, as the line speed increases, all packets are captured. It has become difficult to capture and process.

As prior art documents related to the invention of the present application, there are the following.
IETF Packet Sampling (psamp) Working Group, http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/psamp-charter.html. T.Mori, T.Takine, J.Pan, R.Kawahara, M.Uchida, and S.Goto, “Identifying heavy-hitter flows from sampled flow statistics,” IEICETrans.Commun., Vol.E90-B, no. 11, pp.3061-3072, Nov.2007 .. C. Estan and G. Varghese, “New Directions in Traffic Measurement and Accounting,” ACM SIGCOMM2002, Aug.2002. N. Duffield, C. Lured, and M. Thorup, “Properties and Prediction of Flow Statistics from Sampled Packet Streams,” ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference 2002, Nov. 2002. N. Duffield, C. Lund, and M. Thorup, “Estimating Flow Distributions from Sampled Flow Statistics,” In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, pp.325-336, Aug. 2003. J. Padhye et al., “Modeling TCP Reno performance: a simple model and its empirical validation,” IEEE / ACM Tansactions on Netwoking, 2000. S. Rewaskar and J. Kaur, “Testing the Scalability of Overlay Routing Infrastructures,” Proc. PAM 2004. April 2004.

In recent years, attention has been focused on a technique for reducing processing required for flow management by performing packet sampling (see Non-Patent Document 1). For example, 1 of N packets is periodically referred to, and the original flow statistical information is estimated from the sampled packets.
Further, Non-Patent Document 2 proposes a method for identifying a flow having a high link bandwidth occupancy rate by using packet sampling. Non-Patent Document 3 proposes a method for accurately obtaining statistics of a flow having a large flow size.
However, the above-mentioned Non-Patent Documents 2 and 3 are intended to identify flows that have a large size or a high bandwidth occupancy rate, and quickly identify users who generate excessive flows. It was not possible to grasp the communication quality of the entire flow and statistical information (flow rate distribution, etc.) of the entire flow.
When the distribution related to the original flow information is estimated by this method, there is a problem that the distribution is biased toward a flow having a large flow size and cannot be estimated appropriately. The reason is that in normal packet sampling in which one packet is extracted for every N packets, a flow having a large size is likely to be sampled, and the probability that a flow having a small size is ignored increases.
In the above-mentioned Non-Patent Documents 4 and 5, in a normal packet sampling in which one packet is extracted for every N packets, a SYN packet (one of TCP flags means communication start) among the sampled packets. We propose a method that uses numbers to estimate the total number of unsampled flows and the average and distribution of flow sizes.
However, it is limited to estimating statistical information about the flow size, and does not enable estimation of the flow rate (corresponding to TCP throughput) and the flow duration (corresponding to file transfer time) representing the user quality. .

On the other hand, as another approach, a method of measuring TCP throughput using test traffic between a focused transmission source and destination node can be considered.
However, with this method, the test traffic itself congests the network and affects other users, and the network status changes due to the load of the test traffic itself, so the TCP quality that you really want to know is accurate. The problem was that we couldn't figure it out.
On the other hand, as a method for estimating the TCP throughput with light-weight test traffic, there is a method proposed in Non-Patent Document 6 described above. In the aforementioned non-patent document 6, the packet loss rate and the round-trip delay time are measured between the target hosts, and the TCP throughput is estimated from them.
However, this method has a problem that there may be a region where the estimation is successful and a region where the estimation is not successful, and the estimated value may not match the actual measurement value.
The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems of the prior art, and an object of the present invention is to provide a TCP communication quality estimation method and TCP communication for estimating TCP throughput while reducing the measurement load on the network. It is to provide a quality estimation device.
The above and other objects and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the description of this specification and the accompanying drawings.

Of the inventions disclosed in this application, the outline of typical ones will be briefly described as follows.
In the TCP communication quality estimation method according to the present invention, instead of actually performing forward TCP transfer between a transmission source and a destination to be estimated, the TCP communication in the reverse direction from the destination to the transmission source is performed at the transmission source. The TCP throughput, the round trip delay time between the source and destination and the packet loss rate are measured, and the TCP throughput of the measured reverse TCP communication and the round trip between the source and destination are measured. The TCP throughput of forward TCP communication is estimated using the delay time and the packet loss rate.
The round-trip delay time RTT at a certain point is the same as the forward TCP communication even if the TCP communication in the reverse direction to the forward TCP communication to be estimated (that is, the TCP communication from the destination to the transmission source) Therefore, it can be understood from the behavior of the reverse TCP window how the round trip delay time RTT affects the forward TCP window control. Therefore, the TCP throughput of the forward TCP communication is estimated using the TCP throughput of the reverse TCP communication. By using reverse TCP communication, it is possible to avoid applying an extra load in the forward direction.

As described above, the behavior of the TCP communication in the reverse direction is the same as that in the forward direction in terms of how the round trip delay time RTT affects the TCP communication, but the packet loss rate p_loss is in the forward direction. The behavior does not always match in the opposite direction.
For example, consider a case where congestion occurs in the forward direction from the source to the destination and packets are lost. At this time, data packets are lost in forward TCP communication, and Ack packets are lost in backward communication.
When even one data packet is lost, retransmission control always works and the window size may be changed accordingly. On the other hand, when an Ack packet is lost, retransmission control is not always performed. For example, even if a certain Ack is lost, if the next Ack packet reaches the transmission source safely, it is possible to inform the transmission source of what data packet has reached, so the former Ack is lost. This effect does not affect the behavior of TCP. The TCP throughput estimation method proposed in the aforementioned non-patent document [6] tackles the effect of packet loss as a model.
Therefore, in the second TCP communication quality estimation method of the present invention, the forward TCP throughput is estimated by properly using the reverse TCP throughput and the estimated TCP throughput result in the forward direction according to the value of the packet loss rate. Is estimated.

Specifically, in the TCP communication quality estimation method of the present invention, the TCP throughput of the measured reverse TCP communication at a certain time is expressed as TCP_thruput_rev (t), and the round-trip delay time between the transmission source and the destination is calculated. When RTT (t) and the packet loss rate are p_loss (t), the function F (RTT (t), p_loss (t)) is calculated from the round trip delay time RTT (t) and the packet loss rate p_loss (t). The TCP throughput TCP_estl (t) is estimated, and the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t) is estimated using the function G (TCP_estl (t), TCP_thruput_rev (t)).
Here, if the packet loss rate p_loss (t) is larger than a predetermined threshold, the function G outputs TCP_estl (t) as the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t), and packet loss rate p_loss (t) Is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold, TCP_thruput_rev (t) is output as the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t).
The present invention is also a TCP communication quality estimation apparatus that executes the first TCP communication quality estimation method and the second TCP communication quality estimation method described above.

The effects obtained by the representative ones of the inventions disclosed in the present application will be briefly described as follows.
According to the TCP communication quality estimation method and the TCP communication quality estimation apparatus of the present invention, it is possible to estimate the TCP throughput while reducing the measurement load on the network.

It is a block diagram which shows an example of the basic composition of the IP network to which this invention is applied. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the transmission side apparatus shown in FIG. It is a block diagram which shows schematic structure of the receiving side apparatus shown in FIG. It is the graph which showed the result of having estimated TCP throughput by the TCP communication quality estimation method of the reference example of this invention. It is a graph which shows the result at the time of performing detour control using a TCP throughput estimated value.

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
In all the drawings for explaining the embodiments, parts having the same functions are given the same reference numerals, and repeated explanation thereof is omitted.
[Reference example]
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing an example of a basic configuration of an IP network to which the present invention is applied.
In FIG. 1, 1 is a transmission side device, 2 is a reception side device, 3 is a terminal device, 4 is a LAN, 5 is the Internet, 6 is an edge node, 7 is an access line, and 8 is an Internet service provider.
The TCP communication quality estimation apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention is composed of a transmission side apparatus 1 and a reception side apparatus 2. As shown in FIG. 1, the communication quality estimation apparatus of the present embodiment is used in a form in which a transmission side apparatus 1 and a reception side apparatus 2 are installed at both ends of a section to be estimated on a network. In FIG. 1, the transmission side device 1 performs TCP communication with the reception side device 2 arranged in the LAN 4 via the Internet 5 and the access line 7. The transmission side device 1 and the reception side device 2 may be provided in a server or a terminal device.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the transmission side apparatus 1 shown in FIG.
The transmission side device 1 includes a test packet generation unit 10 that generates a test packet and a TCP operation simulation unit 11.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the receiving side apparatus 2 shown in FIG.
The receiving side device 2 includes a packet receiving unit 20 and a throughput estimation unit 21.

Hereinafter, the TCP communication quality estimation method of the reference example of the present invention will be described.
In the TCP communication quality estimation method of the reference example of the present invention, the test packet generation unit 10 of the transmission side apparatus 1 generates a test packet corresponding to the data size to be tested.
For example, suppose that it is desired to simulate “when 1 MB of data is transferred with a packet size MSS = 1500 bytes (= header 40 bytes + data portion 1460 bytes)”. Further, it is assumed that the test packet size here is set to MSS ′ = 40 bytes (40 bytes is the minimum required size for the IP header + TCP header).
In this case, the test packet generator 10 generates 1 MB / 1460 bytes = 685 (N = 685) test packets, and transfers the packet size to the TCP operation simulator 11 with the packet size set to 40 bytes.
The TCP operation simulation unit 11 transfers the transferred N packets at an access speed of r × MSS ′ / MSS [bps] according to TCP communication. Here, it is assumed that the access line speed to the communication network of the transmission side apparatus 1 is r [bps].
In the receiving-side device 2 shown in FIG. 3, the packet receiving unit 20 receives the test packet and returns an Ack packet according to a normal TCP operation. At the same time, the received packet is passed to the throughput estimation unit 21.
The TCP throughput estimator 21 counts the number of packets correctly delivered for each predetermined measurement period τ, and sets the value as C. Using that C, the TCP throughput is estimated as C × MSS × 8 / τ [bps].
Here, the time T ′ until all of the N packets transmitted from the transmission side apparatus 1 are measured is measured, and the original transfer time T (= actually the access line speed of r [bps]) to be estimated, The time required to send N packets with the MSS packet size is estimated as T = T ′. Also, the TCP throughput for sending all N packets is estimated as N × MSS × 8 / T ′ [bps].

[Example]
Instead of transmitting a test packet from the transmission side device 1 to the reception side device 2 and estimating the TCP throughput as in the above-mentioned reference example, the direction from the reception side to the transmission side (forward direction from the transmission side to the reception side) Consider the situation where the TCP throughput is measured in the opposite direction.
In the present embodiment, the transmission-side apparatus 1 includes a packet reception unit 20 and a throughput estimation unit 21 illustrated in FIG.
In the TCP communication quality estimation method of the present embodiment, the packet reception unit 20 of the transmission side apparatus 1 receives a packet in the reverse direction from the reception side to the transmission side, and returns an Ack packet according to a normal TCP operation. At the same time, the received packet is passed to the throughput estimation unit 21.
The TCP throughput estimation unit 21 counts the number of packets correctly delivered for each predetermined measurement period τ and sets the value as C. The TCP throughput is estimated as C × MSS × 8 / τ [bps] using the C, and the value at a certain time t is defined as TCP_thruput_rev (t).
At the same time, the round trip delay time RTT (t) and the packet loss rate p_loss (t) are measured between the target transmission source and the destination, and the round trip delay time RTT (t) and the packet loss rate p_loss ( Let TCP_estl (t) be the TCP throughput estimated by inputting t).

That is, TCP_estl (t) is given by a function of TCP_estl (t) = F (RTT (t), p_loss (t)). Here, the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est from the transmission source of interest to the destination is estimated by the function G (TCP_estl (t), TCP_thruput rev (t)).
Here, as a candidate of the function F of TCP_estl (t), there is the following equation (1).
[Equation 1]
F (RTT (t), p_loss (t)) = min {W / RTT (t), MSS / (RTT (t) × {2/3 × p_loss (t)} ^1/2 )}
(1)
Here, W is a window function, and equation (1) is the method proposed in Non-Patent Document 6 described above.
On the other hand, the function G includes the following equation (2).
[Equation 2]
G (TCP_estl (t), TCP_thruput_rev (t))
= TCP_estl (t) if ploss (t)> threshold (ie TCP_thruput_est (t) = TCP_estl (t))
G (TCP_estl (t), TCP_thruput_rev (t))
= TCP_thruput rev (t) if ploss (t) ≤ threshold (ie TCP_thruput_est (t) = TCP_thruput rev (t))
(2)

Hereinafter, the results of evaluating the effectiveness of the TCP communication quality estimation method of the reference example by simulation will be described.
In this simulation, a TCP flow is multiplexed on a 10 Mbps link, and the link is congested in one direction. Here, as background traffic, a TCP flow is generated according to the Boisson process, and a file having a size according to a certain distribution is generated and transferred according to TCP.
Apart from the above background load, one TCP flow that continues to actually transfer files (the packet size here is 1500 bytes), and simulates TCP by setting the packet size small by the TCP communication quality estimation method of the reference example One flow was prepared and the TCP throughput was measured.
The result is shown in FIG. In the figure, actual is the throughput of TCP that continues to transfer the file, and tcp is the result of estimating the TCP throughput by the TCP communication quality estimation method of the reference example, simulating TCP with a packet size of 40 bytes.
For reference, the queue length (Qucue length) and packet loss occurrence time (Loss) at the bottleneck link are also shown.
From FIG. 4, it can be confirmed that the TCP throughput is deteriorated as the queue length increases and packet loss occurs, and that the actual value and the estimated value show almost the same behavior.
As described above, the TCP communication quality estimation method of the present embodiment can accurately estimate the TCP throughput while reducing the load on the network. According to the TCP communication quality estimation method of the present embodiment, it is possible to estimate and manage the network quality between the terminals of interest, and efficient quality management becomes possible.

As another application example, a method of searching for a high-quality detour route using an overlay network has been studied in the above-mentioned Non-Patent Document 7 and the like, and it is possible to estimate the quality between nodes required at that time.
For reference, FIG. 5 shows TCP throughput when performing detour control.
In FIG. 5, when default does not perform detour control, it corresponds to when optimal performs control. Note that the X axis represents the TCP throughput x, and the Y axis represents the ratio of communication pairs in which the throughput is x or less.
Here, it is a result using only the information on the round trip delay time RTT between certain nodes and the packet loss rate p_loss, and is the result of estimating the TCP throughput by the method of Non-Patent Document 6 described above. As described above, if the TCP throughput can be estimated, a detour route with higher quality can be selected with high accuracy.
As mentioned above, the invention made by the present inventor has been specifically described based on the above embodiments. However, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention. Of course.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Transmission side apparatus 2 Reception side apparatus 3 Terminal apparatus 4 LAN
5 Internet 6 Edge node 7 Access line 8 Internet service provider 10 Test packet generator 11 TCP operation simulator 20 Packet receiver 21 Throughput estimation unit

Claims (5)

In the TCP communication quality estimation method for estimating the communication quality of the forward TCP communication from the source to the destination,
In the source, measure the TCP throughput of the reverse TCP communication from the destination to the source, the round trip delay time and the packet loss rate between the source and the destination,
Estimating the TCP throughput of the forward TCP communication using the measured TCP throughput of the reverse TCP communication, the round-trip delay time between the source and the destination and the packet loss rate. A TCP communication quality estimation method characterized by: TCP_thruput_rev (t) represents the measured TCP throughput of the reverse TCP communication at a certain point in time, RTT (t) represents the round-trip delay time between the source and the destination, and p_loss ( t)
At the transmission source, the TCP throughput TCP_estl (t) is estimated from the round-trip delay time RTT (t) and the packet loss rate p_loss (t) using the function F (RTT (t), p_loss (t)),
The TCP communication quality estimation method according to claim 1, wherein the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t) is estimated using a function G (TCP_estl (t), TCP_thruput_rev (t)).   If the packet loss rate p_loss (t) is greater than a predetermined threshold, the function G outputs TCP_estl (t) as the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t), and the packet loss rate p_loss (t) is 3. The TCP communication quality estimation method according to claim 2, wherein when the value is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold, TCP_thruput_rev (t) is output as the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t). In the TCP communication quality estimation device that estimates the communication quality of the forward TCP communication from the source to the destination,
The transmission source includes a packet receiving unit that receives a packet;
TCP throughput TCP_thruput_rev (t) of TCP communication in the reverse direction from the destination to the source at a certain point in time, a round-trip delay time RTT (t) between the source and the destination, and packet loss The rate p_loss (t) is measured, and the TCP throughput is calculated from the measured round-trip delay time RTT (t) and the packet loss rate p_loss (t) using a function F (RTT (t), p_loss (t)). And a throughput estimation unit that estimates TCP_estl (t) and estimates the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t) using a function G (TCP_estl (t), TCP_thruput_rev (t)). Communication quality estimation device.   If the packet loss rate p_loss (t) is greater than a predetermined threshold, the function G outputs TCP_estl (t) as the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t), and the packet loss rate p_loss (t) is 5. The TCP communication quality estimation apparatus according to claim 4, wherein TCP_thruput_rev (t) is output as the forward TCP throughput TCP_thruput_est (t) when it is equal to or less than a predetermined threshold.

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