Passive aggressive measurement with MGRP

TitlePassive aggressive measurement with MGRP
Publication TypeJournal Articles
Year of Publication2009
AuthorsPapageorge P, McCann J, Hicks MW
JournalSIGCOMM Comput. Commun. Rev.
Volume39
Issue4
Pagination279 - 290
Date Published2009/08//
ISBN Number0146-4833
Keywordsactive, available bandwidth, kernel module, passive, piggybacking, probing, streaming, transport protocol
Abstract

We present the Measurement Manager Protocol (MGRP), an in-kernel service that schedules and transmits probes on behalf of active measurement tools. Unlike prior measurement services, MGRP transparently piggybacks application packets inside the often significant amounts of empty padding contained in typical probes. Using MGRP thus combines the modularity, flexibility, and accuracy of standalone active measurement tools with the lower overhead of passive measurement techniques. Microbenchmark experiments show that the resulting bandwidth savings makes it possible to measure the network accurately, but faster and more aggressively than without piggybacking, and with few ill effects to piggybacked application or competing traffic. When using MGRP to schedule measurements on behalf of MediaNet, an overlay service that adaptively schedules media streams, we show MediaNet can achieve significantly higher streaming rates under the same network conditions.

URLhttp://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1594977.1592601
DOI10.1145/1594977.1592601