Study of Bursty Internet Traffic
Kannikar Siriwong, Lester Lipsky, Reda Ammar
University of Connecticut
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Storrs, CT 06269-2155
kannis, lester, reda@engr.uconn.edu
Abstract
We study the effects of bursty Internet Traffic through simu-
lations. Both short-range dependency (SRD) traffic and long-
range dependency (LRD) traffic are simulated over different
burst parameters. The results are collected for 10 different 24
hour simulated periods in order to study and measure day-to-
day statistical fluctuation. Effects of employing different traffic
admission constraints are examined. An alternative for improv-
ing network throughput and utilization is proposed. Finally, a
case when arrival patterns of traffic are correlated is explored.
1 Introduction
The goal of multiservices wide-area networks is to serve a
variety of applications, from simple data and voice, to advanced
multimedia applications such as CD-quality music, video-on-
demand and videoconferencing, using the same underlying in-
frastructure (e.g., ATM and Internet). With the improvements
of high speed and reliability of transmission media (e.g., fiber
optics), including the development of powerful and inexpen-
sive workstations, providing this service is feasible. Such ap-
plications can be classified as either time-sensitive or time-
insensitive applications [10]. For time-sensitive applications
(e.g., interactive video browsing or video conferencing), the
value of the communication relies on the time it takes for the
information to be successfully delivered to the recipient and
typically can afford a small amount of data lost. On the other
hand, time-insensitive applications (e.g., file transfer) do not
have a time constraint and usually can tolerate a certain amount
of delay. However, any data loss may be intolerable because the
value of the data depends on correctness of its content rather
than the timeliness of delivery.
In this research, we are interested in time-sensitive appli-
cations. Such traffic can be classified into either Constant Bit
Rate (CBR) or Variable Bit Rate (VBR). The CBR traffic re-
quires constant bandwidth over time, while a VBR source, or
so-called bursty traffic, dynamically changes its bandwidth de-
mand over time. Uncompressed audio and video are examples
of CBR traffic, while compressed audio and video, and asyn-
chronous transfer of files are examples of VBR traffic.
In the case of CBR traffic, it is necessary to allocate constant
bandwidth equal to their bandwidth demands to avoid lost and
overdue data. However, for VBR traffic if bandwidth is allo-
cated to the VBR sources based on their peak demands, then
most of the time it will be under-utilized. Therefore, there is
a need in high speed switches to multiplex various VBR traf-
fic streams in order to cost-effectively utilize overall capac-
ity. Nevertheless, multiplexing various sources decreases the
chance of a network ensuring performance standards (Quality
of Service or QoS) of each traffic source. Therefore, it is impor-
tant for a network to acquire a mechanism to cost-effectively
manage its limited resources to meet diverse performance re-
quirements of different traffic sources yet maintain reasonable
resource utilization.
Currently, the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) has
developed two service architectures to support quality of ser-
vice for real-time applications on the Internet. They are the in-
tegrated service (IntServ) and differentiated service (DiffServ)
[10] [11]. IntServ is a fine-grained approach which provides
QoS to individual applications or flows, while DiffServ is a
coarse-grained approach which provides QoS to classes of ag-
gregated flows. However, the major drawback of IntServ is
scalability since every router involved needs to store state in-
formation per flow basis. The major drawback of DiffServ is
unpredictable end-to-end service quality since a gold class ser-
vice of one network could be a bronze class service of another
network.
These issues are very complex and involve large scale cor-
porations of many network entities [2] [5]. There are many pro-
posals in the literature using either analytical based approaches
[1] [3] or simulation based approaches [6] [7] to provide QoS
for real-time applications. Most analytical approaches are lim-
ited by complexity which makes it difficult to derive generic so-
lutions for a real network. Although simulations allow greater
flexibility to study a system representing a real network, most
simulation based approaches lack a well defined set of parame-
ters accurately capturing burstiness of Internet traffic. As a re-
sult, the studies may not be meaningful enough to comprehend
the complex nature of a system. In addition, they are likely to
become untraceable when a system gets more complicated.
In this work, we aim to gain insight into how Internet traffic
behaves inside a network and what impact it has on network
performance before attempting to develop any solution to the
real problem. We carefully construct a set of parameters de-
scribing Internet traffic behavior and investigate their impact
on network performance through simulations. Our study is
uniquely designed such that a burst parameter (see Section 2)
is considered. Unlike analytical based approaches which can
only study a system in a steady state where traffic has stayed in
a network for an unboundedly long time, our simulation based
approach allows us to study a system in a transient state where
traffic is arriving and leaving a network over a certain period
of time. In this research statistics of interest are collected over
simulated 24 hour periods for 10 different days (i.e., seed num-
bers).
Initially, we began our study with a network of multiple
routers. However, it was soon clear that the system was too
complex to understand the behavior of each research parameter
on network performance. Later we also realized that output of a
router is smoother than the input. Therefore, statistics collected
at the last router may not accurately reflect the actual impact of
the original burstiness of traffic. Also, if multiple sources feed
a network at every router, the burstiness behavior seen at each
router is dominated by traffic generated by a source connecting
to that router. Thus, it is sufficient to simplify our study from a
multiple router network with multiple sources to only a single
router network with multiple sources.
In this study, we describe the bursty traffic characteristics us-
ing the N −Flow model. Then we examine the effects of bursty
traffic with infinite and finite transmission duration. Next, we
analyze the usefulness of dropping potentially late packets be-
fore they arrive at a destination. After that we investigate the
impact of applying a constraint to traffic admission and pro-
pose an alternative to improve network throughput. Finally, we
explore the case when arrival patterns of individual traffic are
correlated.
2 Introduction to the N-Flow Model
The N -Flow model is a variant of many ON-OFF models
presented in the literature [9]. The ON-OFF arrival process
consists of two states called the ON state and the OFF state.
During an ON state packets are generated with peak rate, λp .
During an OFF state no packets are generated. ON-OFF traffic
sources generate packets according to this scenario. Durations
of ON and OFF state can be described by proper distribution
functions. In this study the term burst is used to describe a se-
quence of packets generated during an ON period and the term
flow or session is used to describe a sequence of ON and OFF
periods produced by the same source. Flow transmission peri-
ods can be either infinite or finite. The N -Flow traffic model
is a superposition of N independent and statistically identical
streams of ON-OFF traffic type, as shown in Figure 1. There
are good reasons to believe that the N -Flow ON-OFF model
OFF period
Source 1
packets
Source 2
λ
On period + ν
Infinite Buffer
Source N
Server
1Burst Cycle
Figure 1. The N -Flow traffic model
is a good model to represent real telecommunication traffic. It
has been known for a long time that data streams are bursty [4]
[8]. The study of internet traces at Bellcore in the late 1980s
revealed that packet traffic also has long-range dependence and
self-similarity behavior on multiple time scales. This means
that packet traffic looks bursty at any scale of observations.
An example of such traffic is file transmission over the Inter-
net whose size distribution tends to have power − tailed be-
havior [9]. Aggregation of multiple ON-OFF arrival processes
(i.e., N -Flow model) with heavy-tailed distribution for ON du-
rations produces self-similar traffic.
2.1 . Model Terminology
In order to understand behavior of the N -Flow model, con-
sider the simplest case when N = 1. We will use the terminol-
ogy from [9] to present the 1-Flow model below.
OF F = mean time of OFF period
np = mean number of packets during ON period
λp = peak transmission rate during ON period
ON = np /λp = mean length of ON period
C = a cycle length = ON + OF F
ν = packet service rate of a router
κ = average transmission rate
ρ = κ/ν = router utilization
By definition of ON and OFF periods we have
ON
κ= λp (1)
ON + OF F
The 1-Flow model depends on four separate distributions. Each
one governs a different sub-process which all together describe
characteristics of the 1-Flow model. They are:
• SV: Packet Service Time Distribution with mean 1/ν.
This distribution depends on packet size distribution and
router speed.
• OFF: OFF Time Distribution with mean OF F . This
distribution depends on how bursts are generated and how
often.
• ON: ON Time Distribution with mean ON . This dis-
tribution depends on packet size distribution and nature of
 an application. For example, the ON-time distribution of
file transmission depends on the distribution of file sizes.
While the ON-time distribution of voice transmission de-
pends on the talk period of a speaker between breathing
pauses. ON can be computed from np /λp .
• IN: Inter-Packet Time Distribution during a burst with
mean 1/λp . This distribution depends on how packets are
generated and how often.
A useful shape parameter for describing a 1-Flow arrival pro-
cess is the so-called Burstiness parameter, b, which is defined
as followings.
OF F κ our study through simulations under three case studies below.
b= =1− (2)
ON + OF F λp
Thus κ and λp are related by
κ = λp (1 − b) (3)
The value of b varies over a range of [0, 1] inclusively. If b = 0,
then OF F = 0 which means that bursts abut each other and
packets are continuously transmitted with rate κ. The 1-Flow
(ON/OFF) process is then reduced to a renewal process. On
the other hand, if b = 1, then ON = 0, which means that all
packets in a burst are transmitted simultaneously with infinite
rate, λp = ∞. The 1-Flow (ON/OFF) process becomes a bulk
arrival process. When packets are produced by more than one
ON/OFF source (i.e., N > 1), an effective arrival rate, λ, of
the N -Flow model is the sum of individual mean rates, i.e.,
λ = N κ.
2.2 . Model Setting and Case Studies
To clearly understand system behavior of a complicated traf-
fic model such as the N -Flow model it was necessary to first
begin our study on a simple network of a single router. Here
packets generated by the N ON-OFF sources arrive at a router
where they are queued in an infinite buffer until they can be
sent to their destination (see Figure 1).
We assume that the packets are variable in size according
to an Exponential distribution with mean of 1Kb (1000 bits).
There are on average np = 50 packets transmitted with con-
stant peak rate during a burst. Based on the value of b we clas-
sify traffic into two types: smooth traffic when b ≈ 0 and bursty
traffic when b > 0.3. Two distributions: Exponential (EXP)
and Pareto (PT) were chosen to represent the distribution of
the number of packets in a burst. There are many versions of
Pareto distributions presented in the literature. The one used
in this study is defined as follows [9]. Let X be the random
variable denoting the number of packets during an ON state.
Then
1 • Drop: packets that are expected to miss their deadlines are
R(x) = x α
(4)
(1 + np (α−1) )
where R(x) = P r(X > x), is a reliability function, α is a
shape parameter, whose value is between 1 and 2, and np is the
mean of the distribution, (i.e., E(X) = np ).
EXP produces short-range dependency (SRD) traffic, while
PT yields long-range dependency (LRD) traffic. Time between
bursts (OFF-time distribution) is exponentially distributed. The
router has speed, ν = 104 packets per second and transmits
packets in a first-in first-out, (FIFO) manner.
We assume that all packets are for real-time applications and
have a pre-defined deadline, D. The usefullness of the packets
critically depends on time delivery to their destinations. Our
goal is to study the behavior of ON/OFF traffic using the N -
Flow model and its impact on network performance such as
percentages of packet loss and router utilization. We evaluate
1. Infinite Sessions (Constant number of flows): Each
ON/OFF source sends data according to some ON-OFF
pattern for the entire simulation. The number of flows ac-
tive at any time is constant. Consider a situation when
people transfer their files over the internet. These appli-
cations are created every day and can be viewed as a sin-
gle ON/OFF flow whose session is infinite with transfer-
ring and idle periods as ON and OFF periods, respectively.
Since it is impossible to simulate a flow of infinite length,
we truncate our simulations after a 25 hour period and col-
lect relevant statistics after the warm up period of the first
hour. Both SRD and LRD traffic patterns are simulated at
different values of b and their impact on network perfor-
mance is studied.
2. Finite Sessions (Variable number of flows): Each ON-OFF
source independently generates a flow that exists for a fi-
nite time (chosen as 300 seconds here). Flow-starts arrive
in a Poisson manner. If no traffic admission contraints
are applied, the number of flows active at any time is a
Poisson process. Otherwise, it changes based on the con-
straint chosen. Consider a scenario when people make
telephone calls over an internet. Each call can be viewed
as an ON/OFF flow with talk and silence periods.
3. Correlated Sessions: This case is similar to the finite ses-
sion case except that some (two or more) flows are allowed
to start and end their sessions simultaneously. This corre-
lated session corresponds to a situation when a user makes
an attempt to increase the data rate that he or she is receiv-
ing by getting half of the data from one site and the other
half from another site at the same time.
In all cases two different packet managing disciplines are used
to study the effects of N ON-OFF sources (i.e., N ≥ 1) on
network performance:
• No-Drop: overdue packets are transmitted as normal in a
FIFO manner.
dropped at the router and considered lost.
For both cases, any packet that arrives late at its destination is 3.1 . Simulation Results and Performance
counted as lost and dropped. Analysis

3 Infinite Session EXP, Rho 0.5, 1 flow, Target Delay 0.01 seconds
0.01
MAX

Average Delays at Sink

0.008 AVG
MIN

0.006

0.004

We designed this case study such that a router sees the same 0.002

0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

utilization, ρ, regardless of number of flows, N . Hence, for 35

30
MAX
AVG

any N ≥ 1, the overall packet arrival rate, λ, as seen by the

Percent Total Loss

MIN
25

20

15

10

router, is the same (chosen as 5000 packets/second in this case) 5

0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

even though the mean packet rate of individual flows, κ, can 100

80
MAX
AVG

Good Throughputs
MIN

be different depending on the value of N . Recall that κ =

60

40

20

λ/N . Thus, the more flows being active, the smaller packet 0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
burst parameter
1 1.1 1.2

rate each flow carries. The key idea here is to test if a router
could differentiate the differences in number of flows and how
Figure 2. fluctuation of Performance Metrics for
these changes affect the network performance.
EXP when N = 1, ρ = 0.5, d = 0.01
In addition, for a given N , we complicate the scenarios even
more by varying λp of each flow while keeping its κ the same.
Therefore, even though the aggregated flow seen by the router
consists of the same number of individual flows, each with the 5
PARETO, NO Drop, Rho 0.5, 1 flow, Target Delay 0.5 seconds

MAX

same κ, the router may experience the differences in the traffic

Average Delays at Sink

4 AVG
MIN

shapes. This depends on λp because changing the peak rate 1

0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

also changes the burst parameter (see Equation 3). The goal 20
MAX
AVG

Percent Total Loss

15 MIN

here is to study how the router responds to such differences in 10

traffic behavior and utimately how it performs as the number of 0

0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

flows increase. 100

80
MAX
AVG
Good Throughputs

MIN

60

We simulate traffic of the N ON-OFF Flows, where N = 40

20

1, 2, 5, and 10. For LRD traffic, the ON-time distribution is

0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
burst parameter

defined by a Pareto distribution with α = 1.4. The target packet

delay, D, is set to 0.5 second. For SRD traffic, the ON-time is Figure 3. fluctuation of Performance Metrics for
exponentially distributed with the same mean. However, based PARETO when N = 1, ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5
on our results, SRD traffic does not show much effects when
D = 0.5 so we reduced the target delay D to be 0.01 second.
For a given number of flows, burst parameter, b, varies from 0.5
to 0.95 for each run. Performance metrics used in this study are 120
PARETO, NO Drop, Rho 0.5, 10 flows, Target Delay 0.5 seconds

MAX
Average Delays at Sink

AVG

described as follows. 100

80
60
MIN

40
20
0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

1. Average Packet Delays: The average time a packet takes 20

MAX
AVG
Percent Total Loss

15 MIN

to go from its source to a sink. An internet user prefers a 10

network that can keep packet delays lower than the target. 0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

100
MAX
80 AVG
Good Throughputs

MIN
60

2. Percent Packet Loss: Packets that are past due at their des- 40

20

tination will be considered lost and discarded. Packets 0

0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
burst parameter
1 1.1 1.2

that tend to miss their deadline at a router could also be

counted as lost if the DROP discipline is applied. The per-
cent packet loss is a ratio of number of total lost packets
at a router and sink, and number of total packets sent by
every source. The lower the percentage of packet loss, the
better performance a service will receive.
3. Good Throughput (or Goodput): Goodput is defined to
be the number of packets that arrive at the destination on
time, divided by the total number of packets that might
have been sent (including those from flows that were
blocked from transmitting). The higher the good through-
put, the better the service performance is.
Figure 4. fluctuation of Performance Metrics for
PARETO when N = 10, ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5
The results presented in this section validate the analytical
results shown in [9]. Figures 2 and 3 present the performance
fluctuation of 10 different days for EXP and PT traffic when
NO-DROP policy is applied and N = 1. The results show
that PT traffic causes much more fluctuation and worse perfor-
mance than EXP traffic especially in term of delays. However,
the fluctuation reduces when N increases, as illustrated in Fig-
ure 4 where N = 10. The average results over 10 days of EXP
 EXP, NO Drop, Rho 0.5, Target Delay 0.01 seconds EXP, Drop, Rho 0.5, Target Delay 0.01 seconds
0.01 0.01

Average Delays at Sink

1flow 1flow

Average Delays at Sink

0.008 2flows 0.008 2flows
5flows 5flows
0.006 10flows 0.006 10flows

0.004 0.004

0.002 0.002

0 0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

1flow 1flow
30 30

Percent Total Loss

Percent Total Loss

2flows 2flows
5flows 5flows
10flows 10flows
20 20

10 10

0 0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

100 100
1flow 1flow

Good Throughputs
Good Throughputs

80 2flows 80 2flows
5flows 5flows
60 10flows 60 10flows

40 40

20 20

0 0
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
burst parameter burst parameter

Figure 5. EXP Performance Metrics using NO- Figure 7. EXP Performance Metrics using DROP
DROP policy for ρ = 0.5 policy for ρ = 0.5

PARETO, Drop, Rho 0.5, Target Delay 0.5 seconds

PARETO, NO Drop, Rho 0.5, Target Delay 0.5 seconds 0.1

Average Delays at Sink

3 1flow
Average Delays at Sink

1flow 0.08 2flows

2flows 5flows
2 5flows 0.06 10flows
10flows
0.04
1 0.02

0
0 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

20
20 1flow

Percent Total Loss

1flow 2flows
15
Percent Total Loss

2flows 5flows
15
5flows 10flows
10flows 10
10
5
5
0
0 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

100
100 1flow

Good Throughputs
1flow 80 2flows
Good Throughputs

80 2flows 5flows
5flows 60 10flows
60 10flows
40
40
20
20
0
0 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 burst parameter
burst parameter

Figure 6. PARETO Performance Metrics using NO- Figure 8. PARETO Performance Metrics using
DROP policy for ρ = 0.5 DROP policy for ρ = 0.5

and less extreme (see [9] for a full explaination).

and PT traffic using the NO-DROP are shown in Figures 5 and
6. It was clear that PT traffic causes much worse performance
than EXP traffic even though its D = 0.5 and EXP’s D = 0.01. 4 Finite Session
In addition, the results suggest that a network performs better
when the total stream of packets is distributed over more flows. Practically, network resources (CPU power, buffer, band-
Hence, a network yields the least average delay, % packet loss width and etc.) are limited. It may not be possible for a network
and highest good-put at N = 10. Recall that the higher num- to accommodate every flow and still meet everyone’s perfor-
ber of flows that exist will lower the average rate of each flow. mance requirements. Thus, some criteria need to be made for
Hence, overall traffic is smoothed out when N is higher which a network in order to decide which flows should receive ser-
helps a network to provide better performance. The shape of the vice and which ones should not. These criteria are collectively
graphs also reflect the effect of the burst parameter on network called admission control.
performance. The higher the burst parameter is, the higher the
We study the effects of using three different admission cri-
peak rate of each flow carries. Whenever the sum of all arrival teria on network performance under the NO-DROP and DROP
rates exceeds the router rate, performance of the network de- policy as described below.
creases. Therefore, a network performs worst when b is closer
to 1. The effects of using the DROP policy are presented in • Free for All: Every flow is accepted. There are no restric-
Figures 7 and 8. The results indicate that a network performs tions for flow admission.
better when dropping is allowed. The shape of the graphs us-
ing the DROP and NO-DROP policy are similar and vary as a • Cut off Flows: There is a limit to the number of flows that
function of b as explained earlier. Since dropping late packets can be allowed in a network at the same time. When the
at the router allows other packets to get through faster and re- limit is reached, all new flows are refused access to net-
duces congestion in a network, according to these results the work resources until an existing flow leaves the network.
performance metrics can be improved by at least 10 %.
Note that for PT traffic graphs of 1−Flow in Figures 6 and • Put in Line: Same as Cut-off; however, instead of turning
8 start blowing up at b = 0.5 and continue increasing as b in- away flows when the limit is reached, excess flows are put
creases. For N > 1, their blow-up points are more complex in a queue until sufficient resources are available for them.
For the finite session case, an ON/OFF source independently
generates a flow that exists in the network for a finite time.
Such flows arrive in a Poisson manner. The number of flows
active at any time for the Free-for-All criterion is a Poisson pro-
cess, which corresponds to the M/D/∞ queue. The number of
flows active at any time for the Cut-off and the Put-in-Line cri-
teria correspond to the M/D/N/N queue and M/D/N queue,
respectively. The following new terminologies are used to de-
scribe this scenario.
λf = flow arrival rate
T = flow transmission duration
m = number of flows saturating a router
n = average number of active flows
N = ⌊m⌋ = maximum number of flows allowed in the network
Note that N is applied to the Cut-Off and Put-in-Line criteria
only. In this case router utilization is determined not only by
packet rate of aggregated flows, λ, but also by flow arrival rate,
λf . Time between the begining of each flow is exponentially
distributed with mean 1/λf . The relationship of all parameters
is derived as follows. κ and m are related by
ν less. These performances are measured by goodput, which is
m= (5)
κ
Thus,
ν 4.2 . Simulation Results and Performance
N =⌊ ⌋ (6)
κ Analysis
At any given time, the number of flows traversing the router
varies from 0 to m. On average, n relates to λf by (Little’s
Theorem)
1. Percent Flow Rejection: This metric applies to the Cut
Off criterion only. It is the ratio of the number of rejected
flows to the number of requesting flows. A greater number
of accepted flows can increase profits and make the service
more reliable to the user. Thus, the lower the percentage
of flow rejection, the better the service performance is.
2. Probability of being In-Line: This metric applies to the
Put In-Line criterion only. It is the probability that a flow
will have to wait for service. The lower the probability,
the better the service performance is.
3. In-Line Delay: This metric also applies to the Put In-Line
criteria only. It is the time a flow put in a queue has to wait
for service.
Note that when the Cut Off criterion is applied, the statistic of
percent packet loss does not include packets of rejected flows.
However, the percent flow rejection is taken into account in the
statistic of goodput. The Cut-Off blocks excess flows from re-
ceiving service. Therefore, the effective ρ (see Equation 8) seen
by the router is less by the amount of rejected flows. Conse-
quently, throughput and profits gained by the network are also
a key performance metric that indicates benefits obtained from
both the network and user’s point of views.
NO−DROP EXP, Rho 0.5, Router saturated at 2 flows, %Rej 19.42, Pr(HeldUp) 0.308, Avg HeldUp Delay
1.5
159.41s

Cut Off at 2
Average Delays at Sink

Put in Line
1

n = T λf (7) 0.5

0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

Recall that λ = nκ and ρ = λ/ν, thus, ρ can also be rewritten 60

50
Cut Off at 2
Put in Line
Percent Total Loss

as
40

30

20

10

T λf κ 0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

ρ= (8) 100
Cut Off at 2

ν Put in Line
Good Throughputs

80

60

40

In our simulations, we wish to fix ρ, then λf is selected by 20

0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
burst parameter
0.9 1 1.1 1.2

ρν
λf = (9)
Tκ
In this study, we set ρ = 0.5, κ = 5000 packets/second,
ν = 104 packets/second, and T = 300 seconds. Therefore,
m = 2, N = 2, and λf = 1/300 flows/second. We allow
the last burst of each flow to complete its transmission. There-
fore, transmission duration may not be precisely 300 seconds
for every flow. The last burst of the last flow may complete its
transmission after the simulated 25-hour period. In all cases,
both EXP and PT traffic have D = 0.5 seconds.
4.1 . Performance Metrics
In addition to an average delay, percent packet loss, and
goodput defined in Section 3, new performance metrics are
used to evaluate the effects of the three admission criteria as
followings.
Figure 9. Performance Metric of NO-DROP EXP
when ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5, m = 2
Initially, we attempted to simulate ON/OFF traffic under the
NO-DROP policy using the Free-for-all criterion. However,
without any restriction on traffic admission and dropping, the
router was quickly overrun and packets were queued in a buffer
for an unboundedly long time for both EXP and PT traffic. No
results could be collected for this case. This indicates that an
admission constraint is necessary for the network in order to
provide acceptable services. Therefore, for the NO-DROP pol-
icy only the results of EXP and PT traffic using the Cut-Off and
Put-in-Line criteria are presented as seen in Figures 9 and 10.
Clearly, overall PT traffic received worse service than EXP
traffic did. Although the Put-in-Line yields higher % packet
 NO−DROP PARETO, Rho 0.5, Router saturated at 2 flows, %Rej 19.71, Pr(HeldUp) 0.32, Avg HeldUp Delay 166.58s PARETO, Rho 0.5, Router saturated at 2 flows, %Rej 19.35, Pr(HeldUp) 0.306, HeldUp Delay 158.902 s
6

Average Delays at Sink

Cut Off at 2 Free for All

Average Delays at Sink

Put in Line 0.25 Cut Off at 2
Put in Line
4 0.2

0.15

2 0.1

0.05

0 0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

25
50 Cut Off at 2 Free for All
Percent Total Loss

Put in Line Cut Off at 2

20

Percent Total Loss

40 Put in Line

15
30
10
20

10 5

0 0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

100 100
Cut Off at 2 Free for All
Good Throughputs

Cut Off at 2
80 Put in Line 80

Good Throughputs
Put in Line

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
burst parameter
burst parameter

Figure 10. Performance Metric of NO-DROP Figure 12. Performance Metric of DROP PARETO
PARETO when ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5, m = 2 when ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5, m = 2

loss and average packet delay than the Cut-Off, they perform serve that the graphs of DROP policy have much smaller slopes
comparably in terms of goodput. Notice that EXP traffic tends than ones of NO-DROP policy. This indicates that for variable
to perform better when b increases. This is because EXP nor- number of flows, performance is dominated by the number of
mally produces much smaller burst sizes compared to ones of active flows at any given time but not by bursty behavior of
PT. According to the results of this study, the maximum burst flows. Whenever this number exceeds m, performance col-
size measured over 10 days of EXP traffic is ≈ 800 packets, lapses.
while PT traffic could be > 2 × 106 packets. At smaller b, Figures 11 and 12 confirm that EXP traffic receives better
bursts are transmitted at a lower rate. Thus, it takes a longer service when b increases as opposed to PT traffic for the same
time to complete an ON period. Since a cycle length is fixed reasons described above. The graphs in these figures show
in this study (i.e., C = 0.01), an OFF period becomes shorter clearly that the Free-for-all criterion yields the most % packet
at smaller b. As a result, bursts are likely to abut on one an- lost and packet delays since no restriction on flow admission is
other and eventually jam a router. While, at higher b, bursts applied. In fact, % packet lost of the Free-for-all is more than
are transmitted with higher rate and possibly avoid each other. twice as much as ones of the other two criteria. However, it
Consequently, they can get through a router easier. However, achieves slightly better good throughput than the Cut-off cri-
terion, which is due to flow rejection. This indicates that if
EXP, Rho 0.5, Router saturated at 2 flows, %Rej 19.34, Pr(HeldUp) 0.304, HeldUp Delay 158.28 s

Free for All

only dropping is employed without any admission constraint,
Average Delays at Sink

0.25 Cut Off at 2

Put in Line

0.15
0.2

0.1
the network still can achieve comparable goodput and profits
as when such admission constraint is applied. Therefore, drop-
0.05

0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

25

20
Free for All
Cut Off at 2 ping alone has greater impact on performance than admission
Percent Total Loss

Put in Line

15

10

5
constraint. It is up to the network to decide whether it is better
100
0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

to have all flows to experience dropped packets or have some

Free for All
80 Cut Off at 2

flows to be rejected.
Good Throughputs

Put in Line
60

40

20

0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
The Put-in-Line criterion yields the highest % goodput
burst parameter

among the three criteria, while maintaining comparable aver-

age delays and % packet loss to ones of the Cut-off. This is
Figure 11. Performance Metric of DROP EXP when because the Put-in-Line never turns away any flow but contin-
ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5, m = 2 ues feeding a router as long as there is a flow waiting to be
served.
In conclusion, we suggest that if the time to start a service is
this is not the case for PT traffic whose burst sizes can be very flexible and the time to finish a service for each flow is known
large from time to time. Once they happen, they block subse- in advance (during the time of service request), flows can be in-
quent packets from receiving service and the higher the b, the formed when to return for service. As a result, no flow will be
more likely a single burst will congest the router. Therefore, thrown away. Besides, every flow is sure to receive as good ser-
PT traffic receives worse service at higher b. vice as it may receive when an admission constraint is applied.
Now we consider the effects of the DROP policy using the Consequently, throughput and profit can be maximized.
three criteria. The results are presented in Figures 11 and 12.
It was clear that the DROP policy outperforms the NO-DROP
policy in every aspect of performance metrics for both EXP 5 Correlated Flow
and PT traffic. This is because dropping late packets earlier in a
router causes resources to be available for subsequence packets. In this section two or more flows start and end their sessions
This gives them a higher chance to meet their deadlines. Ob- at the same time. Consider the situation when a user attempts
to increase the data rate he or she is retrieving by getting half 100
Mixed Un/Correlated EXP, Rho 0.5, Router saturated at 2 flows, Prob(correlated flow) 0.33

Free for All

of the data from one site and the other half of the data from
Cut Off at 2

%UnCorrelated Flow GTPUT

80 Put in Line

60

another site at the same time. In this case, the illegitimate users 40

(i.e., correlated flows) try to take advantage of the network by 20

0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

manipulating their traffic arrival patterns.

100

We simulate a mixture correlated and uncorrelated ON/OFF 80

Free for All
Cut Off at 2
Put in Line

%Correlated Flow GTPUT

flows and study the effects of their arrival patterns on net- 60

40

work performance using the three criteria. Each uncorrelated 20

ON/OFF source independently generates one flow at a time, 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
burst parameter
0.9 1 1.1 1.2

while each correlated ON/OFF source dependently generates

two flows at the same time. Similar to the scenario of finite Figure 13. Good Put of un/correlated EXP flows
session case, each flow exists in a network for finite time (i.e., when ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5, m = 2
300 seconds). Both correlated and uncorrelated flows arrive in
a Poisson manner with different means. We introduce new ter-
minologies used to describe this case as follows. Mixed Un/Correlated PARETO, Rho 0.5, Router saturated at 2 flows, Prob(correlated flow) 0.33
100
Free for All
Cut Off at 2
Put in Line

%UnCorrelated Flow GTPUT

80

λf = aggregated flow arrival rate 60

λf 1= uncorrelated flow arrival rate 40

20

λf 2= correlated flow arrival rate 0

0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2

P1 = Probability of uncorrelated flows to occur 100

Free for All
Cut Off at 2

P2 = Probability of correlated flows to occur 80 Put in Line

%Correlated Flow GTPUT

60

40

In order to keep overall flow arrival rate seen by the router the 20

same as in the previous case studies (i.e., λf = 1/300), it is

0
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2
burst parameter

necessary to ensure that

λf 1 + 2λf 2 = λf (10)
Therefore we have
λf 1
P1 = (11)
λf 1 + λf 2
and P2 = 1−P1 . We can derive flow arrival rate of uncorrelated
and correlated flows as follows.
λf P1
λf 1 = (12)
2 − P1
λf (1 − P1 )
λf 2 = (13)
2 − P1
In this work, we set P1 = 0.67 and P2 = 0.33 and keep other
parameters (e.g., ρ, T, m, D, C) the same as declared in the fi-
nite session case. According to the results in the previous case
studies, it is clear that dropping late packets can improve net-
work performance for both EXP and PT traffic. Thus, in this
case we focus our study on using only the DROP policy. In
addition, due to the page limitation of this paper we briefly dis-
cuss our results on only goodputs. Interested reader may refer
to [12] for the full describsion of this work. The graphs in Fig-
ure 13 show that for EXP traffic the Cut-Off and Free-for-All
provides comparable goodput. This indicates that EXP traf-
fic receives closely similar goodput with or without admission
constraint. For PT traffic the Free-for-All yields slightly better
goodput than the Cut-Off as seen in Figure 14. For both EXP
and PT traffic, the goodput of correlated and uncorrelated flows
can be maximized if holding flows is allowed. Unfortunately,
Figure 14. Good Put of un/correlated PARETO
flows when ρ = 0.5, d = 0.5, m = 2
based on the results of our study, correlated flows do not gain
better service than uncorrelated ones no matter which admis-
sion criteria is used. This is due to the discrete issue that we set
the limit of maximum number of flows allowed in the network
to two (i.e., m = 2) and in this scenario we always generate two
correlated flows at a time. Therefore, chances of them overrun-
ning the router is higher than the uncorrelated ones. As a result,
they experience less goodput than the uncorrelated ones.
6 Conclusions and Future Works
Based on the results in our study, we learned that the burst
parameter plays an important role on network performance,
especially for power-tailed traffic, when the number of active
flows is constant, as seen in the infinite session case. When
traffic session is finite, it reduces the impact of the burst pa-
rameter. However LRD traffic still causes more difficulties to a
network than SRD traffic.
It is clear that if dropping late packets is not allowed, flow
admission constraint is necessary for the network in order to
provide acceptable service. Dropping alone can greatly im-
prove network performance even without employing any flow
admission constraint. But then some of the packets will arrive
late or not at all.
The results support that PT traffic causes much more fluctua-
tion than EXP traffic even when dropping is allowed. However,
the differences of fluctuation are much less than ones without
dropping. This confirms that nature of Internet (LRD) traffic is
very dynamic and difficult to predict from day to day. There-
fore, it is necessary to understand its behavior in a transient
state rather than a steady state.
Even if the network has knowledge of which flow to admit
or reject, it still yields poor goodput, as shown in the results us-
ing the Cut-off criteria, since some flows are thrown away. In
reality rejected flows are likely to come back for service any-
way. Thus, rather than rejecting them when sufficient resources
are unavailable, we suggest that if flows are willing to wait for
service, the network can inform them when to return provided
that it knows the transmission period of each flow in advance.
This helps the network to better schedule flows and resources
and as a result, it can maximize throughput and revenues while
maintaining reasonable delays and loss. This yields one strong
advantage of Put-in-Line over TCP such that users are never
asked to slow down their packet rate in order to receive QoS
they request, as oppose to TCP.
Finally, we explored the case when flow arrival patterns are
correlated (i.e., two or more flows start and end their sessions
at the same time). By manipulating the traffic arrival pattern,
we hoped to see that correlated flows could gain better service
than uncorrelated flows. Unfortunately, due to the parameter
setting presented in this study, our results did not successfully
show the advantages of correlated flows.
In the future we aim to explore the situation when amount
of correlated flows is smaller than amount of uncorrelated flows
and more than two flows are allowed to exist in the network. In
addition, we intend to consider using traffic policing and shap-
ing such as a token bucket into our simulation model and study
its effects on network performance.
[6] Lee Breslau, and Sugih Jamin, “Comments on the Per-
formance of Measurement-Based Admission Control Al-
gorithms”, Submitted to IEEE Journal on Selected Areas
in Communications an earlier version to appear in IEEE
Infocom 2000.
[7] Jamin S., Shenker S., and Danzig P., “Comparison of
Measurement-based admission control algorithm for in-
tegrated services packet networks”, Proceedings of the
Conference on Computer Commuinications (IEEE Info-
com)’97 (Apr. 1997).
[8] M. W. Garrett and W. Willinger, “Analysis, modeling and
generation of self-similar VBR video traffic”, in Proceed-
ings SIGCOM, London (UK), (1994)
[9] Lester Lipsky, Hans-Peter Schwefel, Manfred Jobmann,
and Micael Greiner, “Comparison of the Analytic N-Burst
Model With Some Other Approximations to Present-Day
Telecommunications Traffic”, in Technical Report, Uni-
versity of Connecticut, (2000)
[10] Larry L. Peterson and Bruce S. Davie, “Computer Ne-
toworks, A systems approach, Second Edition”, by Mor-
gan Kaufmann Publishers, ISBN 1-55860-577-0
[11] James F. Kurose and Keith W. Ross, “Computer Ne-
toworking, A top-down approach featuring the Internet,
Third Edition”, by Addison Wesley Publishers, ISBN 0-
321-22735-2
[12] Kannikar Siriwong, Lester Lipsky, and Reda Ammar, “A
Study of the Effects of Bursty Traffic”, in Dissertation,
University of Connecticut, (2007)

References

[1] E. Knightly and N. Shroff, “Admission Control for Statis-

tical QoS: Theory and Practice”, IEEE Network,13(2):20-
29, March 1999.
[2] J.F. Kurose, “Open Issue and Challenges in Proving Qual-
ity of Service Guarantees in High-Speed Networks”, ACM
Computer Communication Review, Jan 1993, Vol. 23, no.
1, pp. 6–15.
[3] Rene Cruz “A calculus for network delay, part I: Network
Elements in Isolation”, IEEE Transactions on Information
Theory, vol. 37, No. 1, January 1991
[4] W. Willinger, M.S. Taqqu, R. Sherman, and D.V. Wil-
son, “Self-Similarity Through High-Variablility: Statis-
tical Analysis of Ethernet LAN Traffic at the Source
Level”, Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM’95, pages 100-113,
Aug. 1995
[5] M.E. Crovella and A. Bestavros, “Self-Similarity in
World Wide Web Traffic: Evidence and Possible Causes”,
Proc. of ACM SIGMETRICS’96, May 1996.