A System Theoretic Approach to Bandwidth Estimation

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It is shown that bandwidth estimation in packet networks can be viewed in terms of min-plus linear system theory. The available bandwidth of a link or complete path is expressed in terms of a service curve, which is a function that appears in the network calculus to express the service available to a traffic flow. The service curve is estimated based on measurements of a sequence of probing packets or passive measurements of a sample path of arrivals. It is shown that existing bandwidth estimation methods can be derived in the min-plus algebra of the network calculus, thus providing further mathematical justification for these methods. Principal difficulties of estimating available bandwidth from measurement of network probes are related to potential non-linearities of the underlying network. When networks are viewed as systems that operate either in a linear or in a non-linear regime, it is argued that probing schemes extract the most information at a point when the network crosses f...

Jörg Liebeherr, Markus Fidler, Shahrokh Valae

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