Performance Evaluation

of Computer Networks

Professor Bob Kinicki

Computer Science Department
 Outline
• Performance Evaluation
• Computer Network Performance Metrics
• Performance Evaluation Techniques
– Workload Characterization
– Simulation Models
– Analytic Models
• Empirical Measurement Studies
– What to measure?
– Choice of measurement tools
– The Design of Measurement Experiments

2 Performance Evaluation of Computer Networks

 Performance Evaluation
• Historically, performance evaluation was initially
concerned with computer systems.
• During the 1970’s and 1980’s, computer system
performance evaluation emerged as an essential
component of Computer Science due to rapid and
concurrent advancements in computer hardware
and computer operating systems.
• The resultant increased complexity of modern
computer systems made understanding and
evaluating computer systems more difficult.

3 Performance Evaluation of Computer Networks

 Performance Evaluation
• Performance evaluation is the application of the
scientific method to the study of computer
systems.
• Viewed as distinct from computer system design,
the goal of performance evaluation is to determine
the effectiveness and fairness of a computer
system that is assumed to work correctly.
• Performance evaluation techniques have been
developed to accurately measure the
effectiveness with which computer system
resources are managed while striving to provide
service that is fair to all customer classes.

4 Performance Evaluation of Computer Networks

 Outline
• Performance Evaluation
• Computer Network Performance Metrics
• Performance Evaluation Techniques
– Workload Characterization
– Simulation Models
– Analytic Models
• Empirical Measurement Studies
– What to measure?
– Choice of measurement tools
– The Design of Measurement Experiments

5 Performance Evaluation of Computer Networks

 Computer Network
Performance Metrics
• Metric :: a descriptor used to represent some
aspect of a computer network’s performance.
• The goal is objective performance indices.
• For computer networks, metrics can capture
performance at multiple layers of the protocol
stack, e.g.,
– UDP throughput
– IP packet round trip time
– MAC layer channel utilization
• Performance metrics can be positive and negative.
– e.g., goodput, packet loss rate, MAC layer retries

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 Wide Area Network (WAN)
Host
Host M
Host N Host
A L

2 3 Host
4 J
1
Host 5
B 16
routers 14
11
Host 12 17
C 15 6

10 13
7
9 Host
8 H
Host Host
D G
Host
E
Host
F

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 Wireless Local Area Network
(WLAN)

Server

Clients

AP

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 Sample Performance Measures
Category Metric Units

productivity throughput Mbps

effective capacity
responsiveness delay milliseconds
round trip time
queue size packets
utilization channel utilization percentage of
time busy
losses packet loss rate loss percentage
frame retries
buffer problems AP queue overflow packet drops
playout buffer underflow rebuffer events

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 Wide Area Network (WAN)
Host
Host M
Host N Host
A L

2 3 Host
4 J
1
Host 5
B 16
nodes 14
11
Host 12 17
C 15 6

10 13
7
9 Host
8 H
Host Host
D G
Host
E
Host
F

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 Local Area Network (LAN)

A C X Z

B Y

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 Wireless Local Area Network
(WLAN)

Server

Client

AP

12 Performance Evaluation of Computer Networks

 Outline
• Performance Evaluation
• Computer Network Performance Metrics
• Performance Evaluation Techniques
– Workload Characterization
– Simulation Models
– Analytic Models
• Empirical Measurement Studies
– What to measure?
– Choice of measurement tools
– The Design of Measurement Experiments

13 Performance Evaluation of Computer Networks

 Performance Evaluation Techniques
• Workload characterization for computer networks
involves the design and choice of traffic types that
provide the inputs for computer network
performance evaluation.
• Performance measures of computer networks are all
dependent to some extent on the input workload, the
network topology and the choices in controlled
parameters or network default settings.
• An evaluation study of a computer network seeks to
determine the values for network performance
indices under a given traffic workload and network
configuration.

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 Typical Network Traffic Types
• Web Traffic between a Browser and an
Internet Server.
• Long-Lived File Transfers
– FTP downloads.
• Multimedia Streaming
– Video clip downloads (UDP and/or TCP)
– Audio VOIP (Voice Over IP)
• Peer-to-Peer Exchanges
– Concurrent downloads and uploads
• Telnet file edits

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 Wireless Local Area Network
(WLAN)

Server

Client

AP

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 Performance Evaluation Techniques
Network evaluation utilizes the actual network, an
emulated network or a model of the network.
• Models
– Simulation Modeling
– Analytic Modeling
– Both modeling techniques tend to rely on queuing theory.
• Measurement Studies
– Empirical measurement of real networks
– Measurements where some aspect of the network architecture
or topology is emulated via software or hardware.
The primary focus of this presentation is on the design
and techniques used in experiments to measure real
computer networks.

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 Conceptual Models
• Researchers utilize knowledge about the
interactions of network components to
understand and explain the workings of a
computer network via a conceptual model.
• Models are partitioned into simulation
models or analytic models. Both model
types rely on simplifying assumptions that
that enable the model to capture important
characteristics of networks (usually in
terms of networks of queues).

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 Simple Queuing Model

Arrivals

Queue Server

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 Networks of Queues Model

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 Simulation Models
• Simulation attempts to reproduce the
behavior of the network in the time
domain.
• Event-driven simulation defines a network
in terms of states and transitions where
events trigger transitions.
• Simulation is essentially a numeric
solution that utilizes systems of equations
and data structures to capture the
behavior of the simulated network in
terms of logical conditions.

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 Simulation Models
• The three types of simulators are:
– Trace-driven
– Program-driven
– Distribution-driven
• The choice of the duration of a
simulation run is subject to the same
issues of estimating variance and
variance reduction as found in the
design of empirical measurements.

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 Analytic Models
• Similar to simulation models, analytic
models involve systems of equations.
• Analytic models of computer networks
usually start with a network of queues
model and develop a system of equations
that may or may yield a closed form
solution.
• Analytic models of computer networks
tend to be stochastic models built on the
theory of stochastic processes associated
with independent random variables.

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 Outline
• Performance Evaluation
• Computer Network Performance Metrics
• Performance Evaluation Techniques
– Workload Characterization
– Simulation Models
– Analytic Models
• Empirical Measurement Studies
– What to measure?
– Choice of measurement tools
– The Design of Measurement Experiments

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 Empirical Measurement Studies
The planning phase objectives of an empirical measurement are:

1. To decide what to measure.

2. To choose the measurement tools
3. To design the experiments.

Network measurements can be either active or passive.

• Active measurement involves purposely adding traffic to the

network workload specifically to facilitate the measurement
(e.g., sending packet pair probes into the network to
estimate the available bandwidth along a flow path).
• An example of a passive measurement tool is a network
sniffer running in promiscuous mode to collect information
about all packets traversing a network channel.

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 What to Measure?
• The overall objective of the computer network
measurement study guides the choice of
performance indices to be measured.
• Metrics are either direct or indirect indices. Indirect
indices require some type of data reduction
process to determine metric values.
• Due to the large data volume associated with
network traffic, measurement of computer
networks often involves filtering of data or events
(e.g., It is common for network measurement tools
to only retain packet headers for off-line analysis).
• When the measurement strategy involves
probabilistic sampling, the duration of the
experiments is determined using confidence
interval techniques.

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 Network Measurement Tools
• While hardware probes provide the best
quality measurements, they are expensive
and not always available.
• The availability of software tools for
computer networks depends on the ability
to get inside the components of the
network protocol stack and the ability to
access nodes of the network topology.
• Network software measurement tools
provide ‘hooks’ within the network
layering software to capture and store
network measurement data.

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 Choice of Measurement Tools
Key issues in the usability of network
measurement tools are:
1. Tool location
2. Interference or bias introduced by the tool.
3. Accuracy of the tool.
4. Tool resolution
- This has become a problem with respect to the
granularity of system clocks relative to the speed
of modern high speed network links.

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 Wireless Local Area Network
(WLAN)

Server

Clients

AP

29 Performance Evaluation of Computer Networks

 The Design of Measurement
Experiments
Measurement Experiments are divided into two major categories:

1. Live measurements

• With live empirical studies, the objective is to measure the

performance of the computer network while it is handling real
traffic.
• The advantage of this type of study is that the measurement
involves a real workload.
• One disadvantage of measuring live traffic is being convinced
that this measurement involves ‘typical’ traffic for this network.
• Another disadvantage of live traffic measurement is that
reproducibility of the exact same traffic workload is usually not
possible. This is problematic when the goal is to evaluate the
impact of changing network components on overall
performance.

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 The Design of Measurement
Experiments
2. Controlled-traffic measurements

• Traffic generator tools or traffic script files provide repeatable,

controlled traffic workloads on the network being measured.
• Controlled-traffic workloads are chosen when the goal of the
performance study is to evaluate the impact of different
versions of a network component, strategy or algorithm on
network performance.
• Controlled, repeatable traffic makes it easier to conduct cause-
and-effect performance analysis.
• One difficulty with controlled-traffic is being confident in the
accuracy of the traffic generator tool and the ability to conduct
measurement experiments where the traffic workload choices
are adequately varied to provide representative, robust network
performance evaluation.

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 Measurement Design Decisions
• Understanding which network
components (or independent variables)
significantly impact network performance.
• Deciding which network parameters are to
be controlled and/or held fixed during
experimental runs.
• How long to run a single experiment?
• How many times to repeat an experiment?

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 Throughput (Mbps)

Time (sec)

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 RSSI (dB)

Time (sec)

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 Measurement Design Decisions
• When to run experiments?
– Namely, to determine whether time of day
or other temporal periods influence
performance measurements.
• How to control, minimize and/or
understand physical phenomenon or
other interference sources that can
produce discrepancies and variability
in the measurement results?

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 Throughput (Mbps)

Time (sec)

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 RSSI (dB)

Time (sec)

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 Measurement Design Decisions
• What data filters to use?
• How and where to store experimental
results?
• Determining the best choices of graphical
and tabular forms of data representation to
facilitate network performance analysis
while providing a clear view of the results of
the computer network performance
evaluation.

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 MAC Layer Retries

Time (sec)

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 Cumulative Distribution Function
(CDF)

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 Coming Attractions

Professor Claypool will discuss:

• The Scientific Method applied to

Computer Science
• Statistical Techniques used in
Experimental Measurement Design

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