Traffic Matrix

Estimation for Traffic

Engineering
Mehmet Umut Demircin

Traffic Engineering (TE)

Tasks
Load

balancing
Routing protocols configuration
Dimensioning
Provisioning
Failover strategies

Particular TE Problem

Optimizing routes in a backbone network

in order to avoid congestions and failures.
Minimize

the max-utilization.
MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching)

Linear programming solution to a multi-commodity

flow problem.

Traditional

shortest path routing (OSPF, IS-IS)

Compute set of link weights that minimize

congestion.

Traffic Matrix (TM)

A traffic matrix provides, for every ingress point i

into the network and every egress point j out of
the network, the volume of traffic Ti,j from i to j
over a given time interval.
TE utilizes traffic matrices in diagnosis and
management of network congestion.
Traffic matrices are critical inputs to network
design, capacity planning and business
planning.

Traffic Matrix (contd)

Ingress and egress points can be routers or

PoPs.

Determining the Traffic Matrix

Direct Measurement:
TM is computed directly by collecting flowlevel measurements at ingress points.
Additional infrastructure needed at routers.
(Expensive!)
May reduce forwarding performance at routers.
Terabytes of data per day.

Solution = Estimation

TM Estimation

Available information:
Link

counts from SNMP data.

Routing information. (Weights of links)
Additional topological information. ( Peerings,
access links)
Assumption on the distribution of demands.

Traffic Matrix Estimation:

Existing Techniques and New
Directions
A. Madina, N. Taft, K. Salamatian, S.
Bhattacharyya, C. Diot

Sigcomm 2003

Three Existing Techniques

Linear Programming (LP) approach.

Bayesian estimation.

O. Goldschmidt - ISMA Workshop 2000

C. Tebaldi, M. West - J. of American Statistical Association,

June 1998.

Expectation Maximization (EM) approach.

J. Cao, D. Davis, S. Vander Weil, B. Yu - J. of American

Statistical Association, 2000.

Terminology

c=n*(n-1) origin-destination (OD) pairs.

X: Traffic matrix. (Xj data transmitted by OD pair
j)
Y=(y1,y2,,yr ) : vector of link counts.
A: r-by-c routing matrix (aij=1, if link i belongs to
the path associated to OD pair j)

Y=AX
r<<c => Infinitely many solutions!

Linear Programming

Objective:

Constraints:

Statistical Approaches

Bayesian Approach
Assumes P(Xj) follows a Poisson distribution
with mean j. (independently dist.)

needs to be estimated. (a prior

is needed)
Conditioning on link counts: P(X,|Y)
Uses Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
simulation method to get posterior distributions.
Ultimate goal: compute P(X|Y)

Expectation Maximization (EM)

Assumes Xj are ind. dist. Gaussian.

Y=AX implies:

Requires a prior for initialization.

Incorporates multiple sets of link measurements.
Uses EM algorithm to compute MLE.

Comparison of Methodologies

Considers PoP-PoP traffic demands.

Two different topologies (4-node, 14-node).
Synthetic TMs. (constant, Poisson, Gaussian,
Uniform, Bimodal)
Comparison criteria:
Estimation

errors yielded.
Sensitivity to prior.
Sensitivity to distribution assumptions.

4-node topology

4-node topology results

14-node topology

14-node topology results

Marginal Gains of Known Rows

New Directions

Lessons learned:
Model

assumptions do not reflect the true nature of

traffic. (multimodal behavior)
Dependence on priors
Link count is not sufficient (Generally more data is
available to network operators.)

Proposed Solutions:
Use

choice models to incorporate additional

information.
Generate a good prior solution.

New statement of the problem

Xij= Oi.ij
Oi :

outflow from node (PoP) i.

ij : fraction Oi going to PoP j.
Equivalent problem: estimating ij .

Solution via Discrete Choice Models

(DCM).
User

choices.
ISP choices.

Choice Models

Decision makers: PoPs

Set of alternatives: egress PoPs.
Attributes of decision makers and alternatives:
attractiveness (capacity, number of attached
customers, peering links).
Utility maximization with random utility models.

Random Utility Model

Uij= Vij + ij : Utility of PoP i choosing to
send packet to PoP j.
Choice problem:
Deterministic component:

Random component: mlogit model used.

Results
Two different models (Model 1:attractiveness,
Model 2: attractiveness + repulsion )

Fast Accurate Computation of

Large-Scale IP Traffic Matrices from
Link Loads
Y. Zhang, M. Roughan, N. Duffield, A. Greenberg

Sigmetrics 2003

Highlights
Router to router traffic matrix is computed
instead of PoP to PoP.
Performance evaluation with real traffic
matrices.
Tomogravity method (Gravity +
Tomography)

Tomogravity

Two step modeling.

Gravity

Model: Initial solution obtained using

edge link load data and ISP routing policy.

Tomographic

Estimation: Initial solution is

refined by applying quadratic programming to
minimize distance to initial solution subject to
tomographic constraints (link counts).

Gravity Modeling

General formula:

Simple gravity model: Try to estimate the

amount of traffic between edge links.

Generalized Gravity Model

Four traffic categories

Transit
Outbound
Inbound
Internal

Peers: P1, P2,

Access links: a1, a2, ...
Peering links: p1,p2,

Generalized Gravity Model

Generalized Gravity Model

Tomography

Solution should be consistent with the link

counts.

Reducing the computational

complexity
Hundreds of backbone routers, ten
thousands of unknowns.
Observations:

Some elements of the BR to BR matrix are empty.

(Multiple BRs in each PoP, shortest paths)
Topological equivalence. (Reduce the number of
IGP simulations)

Quadratic Programming

Problem Definition:

Use SVD to solve the inverse problem.

Use Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF) to
ensure non-negativity.

Evaluation of Gravity Models

Performance of proposed algorithm

Comparison

Robustness
Measurement errors
x=At+
=x*N(0,)

Questions?