On the Complexity of Traffic Traces and Implications

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic approach to identify and quantify the types of structures featured by packettraces in communication networks. Our approach leverages an information-theoretic methodology, based oniterative randomization and compression of the packet trace, which allows us to systematically remove andmeasure dimensions of structure in the trace. In particular, we introduce the notion oftrace complexitywhichapproximates the entropy rate of a packet trace. Considering several real-world traces, we show that tracecomplexity can provide unique insights into the characteristics of various applications. Based on our approach,we also propose a traffic generator model able to produce a synthetic trace that matches the complexity levelsof its corresponding real-world trace. Using a case study in the context of datacenters, we show that insightsinto the structure of packet traces can lead to improved demand-aware network designs: datacenter topologiesthat are optimized for specific traffic patterns.