Queueing analysis of network traffic:: methodology and visualization tools

In this paper we provide a framework for analyzing network traffic traces through trace-driven queueing. We also introduce several queueing metrics together with the associated visualization tools (some novel) that provide insight into the traffic features and facilitate comparisons between traces. Some techniques for non-stationary data are discussed. Applying our framework to both real and synthetic traces we (i) illustrate how to compare traces using trace-driven queueing, and (ii) show that traces that look "similar" under various statistical measures (such as the Hurst index) can exhibit rather different behavior under queueing simulation. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.