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Network Working Group V. Paxson, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Internet Draft G. Almes, Advanced Network & Services J. Mahdavi, Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center M. Mathis, Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center Expiration Date: January 1998 July 1997 Framework for IP Performance Metrics <draft-ietf-bmwg-ippm-framework-01.txt> 1. Status of this Memo This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working doc- uments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute work- ing documents as Internet Drafts. Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months, and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress''. To learn the current status of any Internet Draft, please check the ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet Drafts shadow directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. 2. Introduction The purpose of this memo is to define a general framework for partic- ular metrics to be developed by the IETF's IP Performance Metrics effort, begun by the Benchmarking Methodology Working Group (BMWG) of the Operational Requirements Area, and being continued by the IP Per- formance Metrics Working Group (IPPM) of the Transport Area. We begin by laying out several criteria for the metrics that we adopt. These criteria are designed to promote an IPPM effort that will maximize an accurate common understanding by Internet users and Internet providers of the performance and reliability both of end-to- end paths through the Internet and of specific 'IP clouds' that com- prise portions of those paths. Paxson et al. [Page 1] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 We next define some Internet vocabulary that will allow us to speak clearly about Internet components such as routers, paths, and clouds. We then define the fundamental concepts of 'metric' and 'measurement methodology', which allow us to speak clearly about measurement issues. Given these concepts, we proceed to discuss the important issue of measurement uncertainties and errors, and develop a key, somewhat subtle notion of how they relate to the analytical framework shared by many aspects of the Internet engineering discipline. We then introduce the notion of empirically defined metrics, and give a general discussion of how metrics can be 'composed'. We finish this part of the document with a brief discussion of the criteria to be employed when considering whether to advance a proposed metric or methodology to a status of official standing. The remainder of the document deals with a variety of issues related to defining sound metrics and methodologies: how to deal with imper- fect clocks; the notion of 'wire time' as distinct from 'host time'; how to aggregate sets of singleton metrics into samples and derive sound statistics from those samples; why it is recommended to avoid thinking about Internet properties in probabilistic terms (such as the probability that a packet is dropped), since these terms often include implicit assumptions about how the network behaves; the util- ity of defining metrics in terms of packets of a generic type; the benefits of preferring IP addresses to DNS host names; and the notion of 'standard-formed' packets. In some sections of the memo, we will surround some commentary text with the brackets {Comment: ... }. We stress that this commentary is only commentary, and is not itself part of the framework document or a proposal of particular metrics. In some cases this commentary will discuss some of the properties of metrics that might be envisioned, but the reader should assume that any such discussion is intended only to shed light on points made in the framework document, and not to suggest any specific metrics. 3. Criteria for IP Performance Metrics The overarching goal of the IP Performance Metrics effort is to achieve a situation in which users and providers of Internet trans- port service have an accurate common understanding of the performance and reliability of the Internet component 'clouds' that they use/provide. To achieve this, performance and reliability metrics for paths through the Internet must be developed. In several IETF meetings Paxson et al. [Page 2] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 criteria for these metrics have been specified: + The metrics must be concrete and well-defined, + A methodology for a metric should have the property that it is repeatable: if the methodology is used multiple times under iden- tical conditions, the same measurements should result in the same measurements. + The metrics must exhibit no bias for IP clouds implemented with identical technology, + The metrics must exhibit understood and fair bias for IP clouds implemented with non-identical technology, + The metrics must be useful to users and providers in understanding the performance they experience or provide, + The metrics must avoid inducing artificial performance goals. 4. Terminology for Paths and Clouds The following list defines terms that need to be precise in the development of path metrics. We begin with low-level notions of 'host', 'router', and 'link', then proceed to define the notions of 'path', 'IP cloud', and 'exchange' that allow us to segment a path into relevant pieces. host A computer capable of communicating using the Internet protocols; includes "routers". link A single link-level connection between two (or more) hosts; includes leased lines, ethernets, frame relay clouds, etc. router A host which facilitates network-level communication between hosts by forwarding IP packets. path A sequence of the form < h0, l1, h1, ..., ln, hn >, where n >= 0, each hi is a host, each li is a link between hi-1 and hi, each h1...hn-1 is a router. A pair <li, hi> is termed a 'hop'. In an appropriate operational configuration, the links and routers in the path facilitate network-layer communication of packets from h0 to hn. Note that path is a unidirectional concept. subpath Given a path, a subpath is any subsequence of the given path which is itself a path. (Thus, the first and last element of a subpath is a host.) cloud An undirected (possibly cyclic) graph whose vertices are routers Paxson et al. [Page 3] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 and whose edges are links that connect pairs of routers. Formally, ethernets, frame relay clouds, and other links that connect more than two routers are modelled as fully-connected meshes of graph edges. Note that to connect to a cloud means to connect to a router of the cloud over a link; this link is not itself part of the cloud. exchange A special case of a link, an exchange directly connects either a host to a cloud and/or one cloud to another cloud. cloud subpath A subpath of a given path, all of whose hosts are routers of a given cloud. path digest A sequence of the form < h0, e1, C1, ..., en, hn >, where n >= 0, h0 and hn are hosts, each e1 ... en is an exchange, and each C1 ... Cn-1 is a cloud subpath. 5. Fundamental Concepts 5.1. Metrics In the operational Internet, there are several quantities related to the performance and reliability of the Internet that we'd like to know the value of. When such a quantity is carefully specified, we term the quantity a metric. We anticipate that there will be sepa- rate RFCs for each metric (or for each closely related group of met- rics). In some cases, there might be no obvious means to effectively measure the metric; this is allowed, and even understood to be very useful in some cases. It is required, however, that the specification of the metric be as clear as possible about what quantity is being speci- fied. Thus, difficulty in practical measurement is sometimes allowed, but ambiguity in meaning is not. Each metric will be defined in terms of standard units of measure- ment. The international metric system will be used, with the follow- ing points specifically noted: Paxson et al. [Page 4] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 + When a unit is expressed in simple meters (for distance/length) or seconds (for duration), appropriate related units based on thou- sands or thousandths of acceptable units are acceptable. Thus, distances expressed in kilometers (km), durations expressed in milliseconds (ms), or microseconds (us) are allowed, but not cen- timeters (because the prefix is not in terms of thousands or thou- sandths). + When a unit is expressed in a combination of units, appropriate related units based on thousands or thousandths of acceptable units are acceptable, but all such thousands/thousandths must be grouped at the beginning. Thus, kilo-meters per second (km/s) is allowed, but meters per millisecond is not. + The unit of information is the bit. + When metric prefixes are used with bits or with combinations including bits, those prefixes will have their metric meaning (related to decimal 1000), and not the meaning conventional with computer storage (related to decimal 1024). In any RFC that defines a metric whose units include bits, this convention will be followed and will be repeated to ensure clarity for the reader. + When a time is given, it will be expressed in UTC. Note that these points apply to the specifications for metrics and not, for example, to packet formats where octets will likely be used in preference/addition to bits. Finally, we note that some metrics may be defined purely in terms of other metrics; such metrics are call 'derived metrics'. 5.2. Measurement Methodology For a given set of well-defined metrics, a number of distinct mea- surement methodologies may exist. A partial list includes: + Direct measurement of a performance metric using injected test traffic. Example: measurement of the round-trip delay of an IP packet of a given size over a given route at a given time. + Projection of a metric from lower-level measurements. Example: given accurate measurements of propagation delay and bandwidth for each step along a path, projection of the complete delay for the path for an IP packet of a given size. + Estimation of a consituent metric from a set of more aggregated measurements. Example: given accurate measurements of delay for a given one-hop path for IP packets of different sizes, estimation of propagation delay for the link of that one-hop path. Paxson et al. [Page 5] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 + Estimation of a given metric at one time from a set of related metrics at other times. Example: given an accurate measurement of flow capacity at a past time, together with a set of accurate delay measurements for that past time and the current time, and given a model of flow dynamics, estimate the flow capacity that would be observed at the current time. This list is by no means exhaustive. The purpose is to point out the variety of measurement techniques. When a given metric is specified, a given measurement approach might be noted and discussed. That approach, however, is not formally part of the specification. A methodology for a metric should have the property that it is repeatable: if the methodology is used multiple times under identical conditions, it should result in consistent measurements. Backing off a little from the word 'identical' in the previous para- graph, we could more accurately use the word 'continuity' to describe a property of a given methodology: a methodology for a given metric exhibits continuity if, for small variations in conditions, it results in small variations in the resulting measurements. Slightly more precisely, for every positive epsilon, there exists a positive delta, such that if two sets of conditions are within delta of each other, then the resulting measurements will be within epsilon of each other. At this point, this should be taken as a heuristic driving our intuition about one kind of robustness property rather than as a precise notion. A metric that has at least one methodology that exhibits continuity is said itself to exhibit continuity. Note that some metrics, such as hop-count along a path, are integer- valued and therefore cannot exhibit continuity in quite the sense given above. Note further that, in practice, it may not be practical to know (or be able to quantify) the conditions relevant to a measurement at a given time. For example, since the instantaneous load (in packets to be served) at a given router in a high-speed wide-area network can vary widely over relatively brief periods and will be very hard for an external observer to quantify, various statistics of a given met- ric may be more repeatable, or may better exhibit continuity. In that case those particular statistics should be specified when the metric is specified. Finally, some measurement methodologies may be 'conservative' in the sense that the act of measurement does not modify, or only slightly Paxson et al. [Page 6] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 modifies, the value of the performance metric the methodology attempts to measure. {Comment: for example, in a wide-are high-speed network under modest load, a test using several small 'ping' packets to measure delay would likely not interfere (much) with the delay properties of that network as observed by others. The corresponding statement about tests using a large flow to measure flow capacity would likely fail.} 5.3. Measurements, Uncertainties, and Errors Even the very best measurement methodologies for the very most well behaved metrics will exhibit errors. Those who develop such measure- ment methodologies, however, should strive to: + minimize their uncertainties/errors, + understand and document the sources of uncertainty/error, and + quantify the amounts of uncertainty/error. For example, when developing a method for measuring delay, understand how any errors in your clocks introduce errors into your delay mea- surement, and quantify this effect as well as you can. In some cases, this will result in a requirement that a clock be at least up to a certain quality if it is to be used to make a certain measure- ment. As a second example, consider the timing error due to measurement overheads within the computer making the measurement, as opposed to delays due to the Internet component being measured. The former is a measurement error, while the latter reflects the metric of interest. Note that one technique that can help avoid this overhead is the use of a packet filter/sniffer, running on a separate computer that records network packets and timestamps them accurately (see the dis- cussion of 'wire time' below). The resulting trace can then be anal- ysed to assess the test traffic, minimising the effect of measurement host delays, or at least allowing those delays to be accounted for. We note that this technique may prove beneficial even if the packet filter/sniffer runs on the same machine, because such measurements generally provide 'kernel-level' timestamping as opposed to less- accurate 'application-level' timestamping. Finally, we note that derived metrics (defined above) or metrics that exhibit spatial or temporal composition (defined below) offer partic- ular occasion for the analysis of measurement uncertainties, namely how the uncertainties propagate (conceptually) due to the derivation or composition. Paxson et al. [Page 7] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 6. Metrics and the Analytical Framework As the Internet has evolved from the early packet-switching studies of the 1960s, the Internet engineering community has evolved a common analytical framework of concepts. This analytical framework, or A- frame, used by designers and implementers of protocols, by those involved in measurement, and by those who study computer network per- formance using the tools of simulation and analysis, has great advan- tage to our work. A major objective here is to generate network characterizations that are consistent in both analytical and practi- cal settings, since this will maximize the chances that non-empirical network study can be better correlated with, and used to further our understanding of, real network behavior. Whenever possible, therefore, we would like to develop and leverage off of the A-frame. Thus, whenever a metric to be specified is understood to be closely related to concepts within the A-frame, we will attempt to specify the metric in the A-frame's terms. In such a specification we will develop the A-frame by precisely defining the concepts needed for the metric, then leverage off of the A-frame by defining the metric in terms of those concepts. Such a metric will be called an 'analytically specified metric' or, more simply, an analytical metric. {Comment: Examples of such analytical metrics might include: propagation time of a link The time, in seconds, required by a single bit to travel from the output port on one Internet host across a single link to another Internet host. bandwidth of a link for packets of size k The capacity, in bits/second, where only those bits of the IP packet are counted, for packets of size k bytes. route The path, as defined in Section 4, from A to B at a given time. hop count of a route The value 'n' of the route path. } Note that we make no a priori list of just what A-frame concepts will emerge in these specifications, but we do encourage their use and urge that they be carefully specified so that, as our set of metrics develops, so will a specified set of A-frame concepts tech- nically consistent with each other and consonent with the common Paxson et al. [Page 8] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 understanding of those concepts within the general Internet commu- nity. These A-frame concepts will be intended to abstract from actual Internet components in such a way that: + the essential function of the component is retained, + properties of the component relevant to the metrics we aim to cre- ate are retained, + a subset of these component properties are potentially defined as analytical metrics, and + those properties of actual Internet components not relevant to defining the metrics we aim to create are dropped. For example, when considering a router in the context of packet for- warding, we might model the router as a component that receives pack- ets on an input link, queues them on a FIFO packet queue of finite size, employs tail-drop when the packet queue is full, and forwards them on an output link. The transmission speed (in bits/second) of the input and output links, the latency in the router (in seconds), and the maximum size of the packet queue (in bits) are relevant ana- lytical metrics. In some cases, such analytical metrics used in relation to a router will be very closely related to specific metrics of the performance of Internet paths. For example, an obvious formula (L + P/B) involv- ing the latency in the router (L), the packet size (in bits) (P), and the transmission speed of the output link (B) might closely approxi- mate the increase in packet delay due to the insertion of a given router along a path. We stress, however, that well-chosen and well-specified A-frame con- cepts and their analytical metrics will support more general metric creation efforts in less obvious ways. {Comment: for example, when considering the flow capacity of a path, it may be of real value to be able to model each of the routers along the path as packet forwarders as above. Techniques for estimating the flow capacity of a path might use the maximum packet queue size as a parameter in decidedly non-obvious ways. For example, as the maximum queue size increases, so will the ability of the router to continuously move traffic along an output link despite fluctuations in traffic from an input link. Estimating this increase, however, remains a research topic.} Note that, when we specify A-frame concepts and analytical metrics, we will inevitably make simplifying assumptions. The key role of these concepts is to abstract the properties of the Internet compo- nents relevant to given metrics. Judgement is required to avoid Paxson et al. [Page 9] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 making assumptions that bias the modeling and metric effort toward one kind of design. {Comment: for example, routers might not use tail-drop, even though tail-drop might be easier to model analytically.} Finally, note that different elements of the A-frame might well make different simplifying assumptions. For example, the abstraction of a router used to further the definition of path delay might treat the router's packet queue as a single FIFO queue, but the abstraction of a router used to further the definition of the handling of an RSVP- enabled packet might treat the router's packet queue as supporting bounded delay -- a contradictory assumption. This is not to say that we make contradictory assumptions at the same time, but that two dif- ferent parts of our work might refine the simpler base concept in two divergent ways for different purposes. {Comment: in more mathematical terms, we would say that the A-frame taken as a whole need not be consistent; but the set of particular A- frame elements used to define a particular metric must be.} 7. Empirically Specified Metrics There are useful performance and reliability metrics that do not fit so neatly into the A-frame, usually because the A-frame lacks the detail or power for dealing with them. For example, "the best flow capacity achievable along a path using an RFC-2001-compliant TCP" would be good to be able to measure, but we have no analytical frame- work of sufficient richness to allow us to cast that flow capacity as an analytical metric. These notions can still be well specified by instead describing a reference methodology for measuring them. Such a metric will be called an 'empirically specified metric', or more simply, an empirical metric. Such empirical metrics should have three properties: + we should have a clear definition for each in terms of Internet components, + we should have at least one effective means to measure them, and + to the extent possible, we should have an (necessarily incomplete) understanding of the metric in terms of the A-frame so that we can use our measurements to reason about the performance and reliabil- ity of A-frame components and of aggregations of A-frame compo- nents. Paxson et al. [Page 10] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 8. Two Forms of Composition 8.1. Spatial Composition of Metrics In some cases, it may be realistic and useful to define metrics in such a fashion that they exhibit spatial composition. By spatial composition, we mean a characteristic of some path met- rics, in which the metric as applied to a (complete) path can also be defined for various subpaths, and in which the appropriate A-frame concepts for the metric suggest useful relationships between the met- ric applied to these various subpaths (including the complete path, the various cloud subpaths of a given path digest, and even single routers along the path). The effectiveness of spatial composition depends: + on the usefulness in analysis of these relationships as applied to the relevant A-frame components, and + on the practical use of the corresponding relationships as applied to metrics and to measurement methodologies. {Comment: for example, consider some metric for delay of a 100-byte packet across a path P, and consider further a path digest <h0, e1, C1, ..., en, hn> of P. The definition of such a metric might include a conjecture that the delay across P is very nearly the sum of the corresponding metric across the exhanges (ei) and clouds (Ci) of the given path digest. The definition would further include a note on how a corresponding relation applies to relevant A-frame components, both for the path P and for the exchanges and clouds of the path digest.} When the definition of a metric includes a conjecture that the metric across the path is related to the metric across the subpaths of the path, that conjecture constitutes a claim that the metric exhibits spatial composition. The definition should then include: + the specific conjecture applied to the metric, + a justification of the practical utility of the composition in terms of making accurate measurements of the metric on the path, + a justification of the usefulness of the composition in terms of making analysis of the path using A-frame concepts more effective, and + an analysis of how the conjecture could be incorrect. Paxson et al. [Page 11] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 8.2. Temporal Composition of Formal Models and Empirical Metrics In some cases, it may be realistic and useful to define metrics in such a fashion that they exhibit temporal composition. By temporal composition, we mean a characteristic of some path met- ric, in which the metric as applied to a path at a given time T is also defined for various times t0 < t1 < ... < tn < T, and in which the appropriate A-frame concepts for the metric suggests useful rela- tionships between the metric applied at times t0, ..., tn and the metric applied at time T. The effectiveness of temporal composition depends: + on the usefulness in analysis of these relationships as applied to the relevant A-frame components, and + on the practical use of the corresponding relationships as applied to metrics and to measurement methodologies. {Comment: for example, consider a metric for the expected flow capacity across a path P during the five-minute period surrounding the time T, and suppose further that we have the corresponding values for each of the four previous five-minute periods t0, t1, t2, and t3. The definition of such a metric might include a conjecture that the flow capacity at time T can be estimated from a certain kind of extrapolation from the values of t0, ..., t3. The definition would further include a note on how a corresponding relation applies to relevant A-frame components. Note: any (spatial or temporal) compositions involving flow capacity are likely to be subtle, and temporal compositions are generally more subtle than spatial compositions, so the reader should understand that the foregoing example is intentionally naive.} When the definition of a metric includes a conjecture that the metric across the path at a given time T is related to the metric across the path for a set of other times, that conjecture constitutes a claim that the metric exhibits temporal composition. The definition should then include: + the specific conjecture applied to the metric, + a justification of the practical utility of the composition in terms of making accurate measurements of the metric on the path, and + a justification of the usefulness of the composition in terms of making analysis of the path using A-frame concepts more effective. Paxson et al. [Page 12] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 9. Criteria for Granting Official Status to a Metric or a Methodology The principal goal of the IPPM effort is to develop standardized met- rics and methodologies for sound Internet measurement. In this sec- tion we briefly discuss the criteria we envision being used for determining whether a proposed metric or methodology should be advanced to some form of official status. When standardizing Internet protocols, one requirement often employed by the IETF is that each proposed protocol must have two indepen- dently developed, interoperating implementations. The main goal underlying this requirement is to determine whether the definition of the protocol is sufficiently unambiguous that a correct (hence, interoperating) implementation can be developed based solely on the description of the protocol (hence, independently developed). We would like to employ a similar requirement for standardizing IPPM metrics and methodologies, to ensure that their written descriptions are unambiguous. However, for metrics the analog of an implementa- tion is a methodology, but we do not want to require two separate methodologies for each metric we standardize, because some metrics might lend themselves only to one obvious methodology. We address this problem by first considering the criteria for stan- dardizing a methodology. Each description of a methodology is sup- posed to lend itself to the development of an implementation (i.e., computer program) that then executes the methodology. Consequently, we require that two such implementations exist, independently writ- ten, before a methodology can be considered for standardization. We then allow a metric to be standardized if we have at least one stan- dardized methodology for measuring the metric. The one remaining issue is how to define an analog for 'interopera- ble'. This is not as easy as it might first appear. For a method- olgy, a natural definition of interoperable is "produces the same results". However, it may be very hard to show that two implementa- tions of a methodology do in fact produce the same results, because of the difficulties with arranging to use each implementation to mea- sure exactly the same network conditions. As soon as the implementa- tions are used under slightly different conditions, we immediately face the problem of determining whether any differences in their mea- surements are due to the different network conditions, or due to incompatibilities in how the two implementations execute the method- olgy. In light of these problems, we instead fall back on a less stringent requirement: to show that two implementations of a methodology are comparable, we require that the chair of the IPPM working group find Paxson et al. [Page 13] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 rough consensus among the working group members that they are equiva- lent. Presumably, such consensus will be sought for following a pre- sentation to the group as to the results obtained using each of the implementations, and an analysis of how the results agree with one another. 10. Issues related to Time 10.1. Clock Issues Measurements of time lie at the heart of many Internet metrics. Because of this, it will often be crucial when designing a methodol- ogy for measuring a metric to understand the different types of errors and uncertainties introduced by imperfect clocks. In this section we define terminology for discussing the characteristics of clocks and touch upon related measurement issues which need to be addressed by any sound methodology. The Network Time Protocol (NTP; RFC 1305) defines a nomenclature for discussing clock characteristics, which we will also use when appro- priate [Mi92]. The main goal of NTP is to provide accurate timekeep- ing over fairly long time scales, such as minutes to days, while for measurement purposes often what is more important is short-term accu- racy, between the beginning of the measurement and the end, or over the course of gathering a body of measurements (a sample). This dif- ference in goals sometimes leads to different definitions of termi- nology as well, as discussed below. To begin, we define a clock's "offset" at a particular moment as the difference between the time reported by the clock and the "true" time as defined by UTC. If the clock reports a time Tc and the true time is Tt, then the clock's offset is Tc - Tt. We will refer to a clock as "accurate" at a particular moment if the clock's offset is zero, and more generally a clock's "accuracy" is how close the absolute value of the offset is to zero. For NTP, accuracy also includes a notion of the frequency of the clock; for our purposes, we instead incorporate this notion into that of "skew", because we define accuracy in terms of a single moment in time rather than over an interval of time. A clock's "skew" at a particular moment is the frequency difference (first derivative of its offset with respect to true time) between the clock and true time. As noted in RFC 1305, real clocks exhibit some variation in skew. Paxson et al. [Page 14] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 That is, the second derivative of the clock's offset with respect to true time is generally non-zero. In keeping with RFC 1305, we define this quantity as the clock's "drift". A clock's "resolution" is the smallest unit by which the clock's time is updated. It gives a lower bound on the clock's uncertainty. (Note that clocks can have very fine resolutions and yet be wildly inaccurate.) Resolution is defined in terms of seconds. However, resolution is relative to the clock's reported time and not to true time, so for example a resolution of 10 ms only means that the clock updates its notion of time in 0.01 second increments, not that this is the true amount of time between updates. {Comment: Systems differ on how an application interface to the clock reports the time on subsequent calls during which the clock has not advanced. Some systems simply return the same unchanged time as given for previous calls. Others may add a small increment to the reported time to maintain monotonic increasing timestamps. For sys- tems that do the latter, we do *not* consider these small increments when defining the clock's resolution. They are instead an impediment to assessing the clock's resolution, since a natural method for doing so is to repeatedly query the clock to determine the smallest non- zero difference in reported times.} It is expected that a clock's resolution changes only rarely (for example, due to a hardware upgrade). There are a number of interesting metrics for which some natural mea- surement methodologies involve comparing times reported by two dif- ferent clocks. An example is one-way packet delay (currently an Internet Draft [AK96]). Here, the time required for a packet to travel through the network is measured by comparing the time reported by a clock at one end of the packet's path, corresponding to when the packet first entered the network, with the time reported by a clock at the other end of the path, corresponding to when the packet fin- ished traversing the network. We are thus also interested in terminology for describing how two clocks C1 and C2 compare. To do so, we introduce terms related to those above in which the notion of "true time" is replaced by the time as reported by clock C1. For example, clock C2's offset rela- tive to C1 at a particular moment is Tc2 - Tc1, the instantaneous difference in time reported by C2 and C1. To disambiguate between the use of the terms to compare two clocks versus the use of the terms to compare to true time, we will in the former case use the phrase "relative". So the offset defined earlier in this paragraph is the "relative offset" between C2 and C1. Paxson et al. [Page 15] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 When comparing clocks, the analog of "resolution" is not "relative resolution", but instead "joint resolution", which is the sum of the resolutions of C1 and C2. The joint resolution then indicates a con- servative lower bound on the accuracy of any time intervals computed by subtracting timestamps generated by one clock from those generated by the other. If two clocks are "accurate" with respect to one another (their rela- tive offset is zero), we will refer to the pair of clocks as "syn- chronized". Note that clocks can be highly synchronized yet arbi- trarily inaccurate in terms of how well they tell true time. This point is important because for many Internet measurements, synchro- nization between two clocks is more important than the accuracy of the clocks. The is somewhat true of skew, too: as long as the abso- lute skew is not too great, then minimal relative skew is more impor- tant, as it can induce systematic trends in packet transit times mea- sured by comparing timestamps produced by the two clocks. These distinctions arise because for Internet measurement what is often most important are differences in time as computed by comparing the output of two clocks. The process of computing the difference removes any error due to clock inaccuracies with respect to true time; but it is crucial that the differences themselves accurately reflect differences in true time. Measurement methodologies will often begin with the step of assuring that two clocks are synchronized and have minimal skew and drift. {Comment: An effective way to assure these conditions (and also clock accuracy) is by using clocks that derive their notion of time from an external source, rather than only the host computer's clock. (These latter are often subject to large errors.) It is further preferable that the clocks directly derive their time, for example by having immediate access to a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit.} Two important concerns arise if the clocks indirectly derive their time using a network time synchronization protocol such as NTP: + First, NTP's accuracy depends in part on the properties (particu- larly delay) of the Internet paths used by the NTP peers, and these might be exactly the properties that we wish to measure, so it would be unsound to use NTP to calibrate such measurements. + Second, NTP focuses on clock accuracy, which can come at the expense of short-term clock skew and drift. For example, when a host's clock is indirectly synchronized to a time source, if the synchronization intervals occur infrequently, then the host will sometimes be faced with the problem of how to adjust its current, incorrect time, Ti, with a considerably different, more accurate time it has just learned, Ta. Two general ways in which this is done are to either immediately set the current time to Ta, or to Paxson et al. [Page 16] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 adjust the local clock's update frequency (hence, its skew) so that at some point in the future the local time Ti' will agree with the more accurate time Ta'. The first mechanism introduces discontinuities and can also violate common assumptions that timestamps are monotone increasing. If the host's clock is set backward in time, sometimes this can be easily detected. If the clock is set forward in time, this can be harder to detect. The skew induced by the second mechanism can lead to considerable inaccuracies when computing differences in time, as discussed above. To illustrate why skew is a crucial concern, consider samples of one- way delays between two Internet hosts made at one minute intervals. The true transmission delay between the hosts might plausibly be on the order of 50 ms for a transcontinental path. If the skew between the two clocks is 0.01%, that is, 1 part in 10,000, then after 10 minutes of observation the error introduced into the measurement is 60 ms. Unless corrected, this error is enough to completely wipe out any accuracy in the transmission delay measurement. Finally, we note that assessing skew errors between unsynchronized network clocks is an open research area. (See [Pa97] for a discussion of detecting and compensating for these sorts of errors.) This shortcoming makes use of a solid, independent clock source such as GPS especially desir- able. 10.2. The Notion of "Wire Time" Internet measurement is often complicated by the use of Internet hosts themselves to perform the measurement. These hosts can intro- duce delays, bottlenecks, and the like that are due to hardware or operating system effects and have nothing to do with the network behavior we would like to measure. This problem is particularly acute when timestamping of network events occurs at the application level. In order to provide a general way of talking about these effects, we introduce two notions of "wire time". These notions are only defined in terms of an Internet host H observing an Internet link L at a par- ticular location: + For a given packet P, the 'wire arrival time' of P at H on L is the first time T at which any bit of P has appeared at H's obser- vational position on L. Paxson et al. [Page 17] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 + For a given packet P, the 'wire exit time' of P at H on L is the first time T at which all the bits of P have appeared at H's observational position on L. Note that intrinsic to the definition is the notion of where on the link we are observing. This distinction is important because for large-latency links, we may obtain very different times depending on exactly where we are observing the link. We could allow the observa- tional position to be an arbitrary location along the link; however, we define it to be in terms of an Internet host because we anticipate in practice that, for IPPM metrics, all such timing will be con- strained to be performed by Internet hosts, rather than specialized hardware devices that might be able to monitor a link at locations where a host cannot. This definition also takes care of the problem of links that are comprised of multiple physical channels. Because these multiple channels are not visible at the IP layer, they cannot be individually observed in terms of the above definitions. It is possible, though one hopes uncommon, that a packet P might make multiple trips over a particular link L, due to a forwarding loop. These trips might even overlap, depending on the link technology. Whenever this occurs, we define a separate wire time associated with each instance of P seen at H's position on the link. This definition is worth making because it serves as a reminder that notions like *the* unique time a packet passes a point in the Internet are inher- ently slippery. The term wire time has historically been used to loosely denote the time at which a packet appeared on a link, without exactly specifying whether this refers to the first bit, the last bit, or some other consideration. This informal definition is generally already very useful, as it is usually used to make a distinction between when the packet's propagation delays begin and cease to be due to the network rather than the endpoint hosts. When appropriate, metrics should be defined in terms of wire times rather than host endpoint times, so that the metric's definition highlights the issue of separating delays due to the host from those due to the network. We note that these notions have not, to our knowledge, been previ- ously defined in exact terms for Internet traffic. Consequently, we may find with experience that these definitions require some adjust- ment in the future. {Comment: It can sometimes be difficult to measure wire times. One technique is to use a packet filter to monitor traffic on a link. The architecture of these filters often attempts to associate with each packet a timestamp as close to the wire time as possible. We Paxson et al. [Page 18] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 note however that one common source of error is to run the packet filter on one of the endpoint hosts. In this case, it has been observed that some packet filters receive for some packets timestamps corresponding to when the packet was *scheduled* to be injected into the network, rather than when it actually was *sent* out onto the network (wire time). There can be a substantial difference between these two times. A technique for dealing with this problem is to run the packet filter on a separate host that passively monitors the given link. This can be problematic however for some link technolo- gies. See also [Pa97] for a discussion of the sorts of errors packet filters can exhibit.} 11. Singletons, Samples, and Statistics With experience we have found it useful to introduce a separation between three distinct -- yet related -- notions: + By a 'singleton' metric, we refer to metrics that are, in a sense, atomic. For example, a single instance of "bulk throughput capac- ity" from one host to another might be defined as a singleton met- ric, even though the instance involves measuring the timing of a number of Internet packets. + By a 'sample' metric, we refer to metrics derived from a given singleton metric by taking a number of distinct instances together. For example, we might define a sample metric of one-way delays from one host to another as an hour's worth of measure- ments, each made at Poisson intervals with a mean spacing of one second. + By a 'statistical' metric, we refer to metrics derived from a given sample metric by computing some statistic of the values defined by the singleton metric on the sample. For example, the mean of all the one-way delay values on the sample given above might be defined as a statistical metric. By applying these notions of singleton, sample, and statistic in a consistent way, we will be able to reuse lessons learned about how to define samples and statistics on various metrics. The orthogonality among these three notions will thus make all our work more effective and more intelligible by the community. In the remainder of this section, we will cover some topics in sam- pling and statistics that we believe will be important to a variety of metric definitions and measurement efforts. Paxson et al. [Page 19] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 11.1. Methods of Collecting Samples The main reason for collecting samples is to see what sort of varia- tions and consistencies are present in the metric being measured. These variations might be with respect to different points in the Internet, or different measurement times. When assessing variations based on a sample, one generally makes an assumption that the sample is "unbiased", meaning that the process of collecting the measure- ments in the sample did not skew the sample so that it no longer accurately reflects the metric's variations and consistencies. One common way of collecting samples is to make measurements sepa- rated by fixed amounts of time: periodic sampling. Periodic sampling is particularly attractive because of its simplicity, but it suffers from two potential problems: + If the metric being measured itself exhibits periodic behavior, then there is a possibility that the sampling will observe only part of the periodic behavior if the periods happen to agree (either directly, or if one is a multiple of the other). Related to this problem is the notion that periodic sampling can be easily anticipated. Predictable sampling is susceptible to manipulation if there are mechanisms by which a network component's behavior can be temporarily changed such that the sampling only sees the modified behavior. + The act of measurement can perturb what is being measured (for example, injecting measurement traffic into a network alters the congestion level of the network), and repeated periodic perturba- tions can drive a network into a state of synchronization (cf. [FJ94]), greatly magnifying what might individually be minor effects. A more sound approach is based on "random additive sampling": samples are separated by independent, randomly generated intervals that have a common statistical distribution G(t) [BM92]. The quality of this sampling depends on the distribution G(t). For example, if G(t) gen- erates a constant value g with probability one, then the sampling reduces to periodic sampling with a period of g. 11.1.1. Poisson Sampling It can be proved that if G(t) is an exponential distribution with rate lambda, that is G(t) = 1 - exp(-lambda * t) then the arrival of new samples *cannot* be predicted, and the sam- pling is unbiased. Furthermore, the sampling is asymptotically unbi- ased even if the act of sampling affects the network's state. Such sampling is referred to as "Poisson sampling". It is not prone to Paxson et al. [Page 20] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 inducing synchronization, it can be used to accurately collect mea- surements of periodic behavior, and it is not prone to manipulation by anticipating when new samples will occur. Because of these valuable properties, samples of Internet measure- ments should be gathered using Poisson sampling unless there is a compelling reason to use a different approach. In its purest form, Poisson sampling is done by generating indepen- dent, exponentially distributed intervals and gathering a single mea- surement after each interval has elapsed. It can be shown that if starting at time T one performs Poisson sampling over an interval dT, during which a total of N measurements happen to be made, then those measurements will be uniformly distributed over the interval [T, T+dT]. So another way of conducting Poisson sampling is to pick dT and N and generate N random sampling times uniformly over the inter- val [T, T+dT]. The two approaches are equivalent, except if N and dT are externally known. In that case, the property of not being able to predict measurement times is weakened (the other properties still hold). The N/dT approach has an advantage that dealing with fixed values of N and dT can be simpler than dealing with a fixed lambda but variable numbers of measurements over variably-sized intervals. 11.1.2. Geometric Sampling Closely related to Poisson sampling is "geometric sampling", in which external events are measured with a fixed probability p. For exam- ple, one might capture all the packets over a link but only record the packet to a trace file if a randomly generated number uniformly distributed between 0 and 1 is less than a given p. Geometric sam- pling has the same properties of being unbiased and not predictable in advance as Poisson sampling, so if it fits a particular Internet measurement task, it too is sound. See [CPB93] for more discussion. 11.1.3. Generating Poisson Sampling Intervals To generate Poisson sampling intervals, one first determines the rate lambda at which the samples will on average be made (e.g., for an average sampling interval of 30 seconds, we have lambda = 1/30, if the units of time are seconds). One then generates a series of expo- nentially-distributed (pseudo-)random numbers E1, E2, ..., En. The first measurement is made at time E1, the next at time E1+E2, and so on. One technique for generating exponentially-distributed (pseudo-)random numbers is based on the ability to generate U1, U2, Paxson et al. [Page 21] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 ..., Un, (pseudo-)random numbers that are uniformly distributed between 0 and 1. Many computers provide libraries that can do this. Given such Ui, to generate Ei one uses: Ei = -log(Ui) / lambda where log(Ui) is the natural logarithm of Ui. {Comment: This tech- nique is an instance of the more general "inverse transform" method for generating random numbers with a given distribution.} Implementation details: There are at least three different methods for approximating Poisson sampling, which we describe here as Methods 1 through 3. Method 1 is the easiest to implement and has the most error, and method 3 is the most difficult to implement and has the least error (potentially none). Method 1 is to proceed as follows: 1. Generate E1 and wait that long. 2. Perform a measurement. 3. Generate E2 and wait that long. 4. Perform a measurement. 5. Generate E3 and wait that long. 6. Perform a measurement ... The problem with this approach is that the "Perform a measurement" steps themselves take time, so the sampling is not done at times E1, E1+E2, etc., but rather at E1, E1+M1+E2, etc., where Mi is the amount of time required for the i'th measurement. If Mi is very small com- pared to 1/lambda then the potential error introduced by this tech- nique is likewise small. As Mi becomes a non-negligible fraction of 1/lambda, the potential error increases. Method 2 attempts to correct this error by taking into account the amount of time required by the measurements (i.e., the Mi's) and adjusting the waiting intervals accordingly: 1. Generate E1 and wait that long. 2. Perform a measurement and measure M1, the time it took to do so. 3. Generate E2 and wait for a time E2-M1. 4. Perform a measurement and measure M2 .. This approach works fine as long as E{i+1} >= Mi. But if E{i+1} < Mi then it is impossible to wait the proper amount of time. (Note that this case corresponds to needing to perform two measurements simulta- neously.) Method 3 is generating a schedule of measurement times E1, E1+E2, etc., and then sticking to it: 1. Generate E1, E2, ..., En. Paxson et al. [Page 22] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 2. Compute measurement times T1, T2, ..., Tn, as Ti = E1 + ... + Ei. 3. Arrange that at times T1, T2, ..., Tn, a measurement is made. By allowing simultaneous measurements, Method 3 avoids the shortcom- ings of Methods 1 and 2. If, however, simultaneous measurements interfere with one another, then Method 3 does not gain any benefit and may actually prove worse than Methods 1 or 2. For Internet phenomena, it is not known to what degree the inaccura- cies of these methods are significant. If the Mi's are much less than 1/lambda, then any of the three should suffice. If the Mi's are less than 1/lambda but perhaps not greatly less, then Method 2 is preferred to Method 1. If simultaneous measurements do not interfere with one another, then Method 3 is preferred, though it can be con- siderably harder to implement. 11.2. Self-Consistency A fundamental requirement for a sound measurement methodology is that measurement be made using as few unconfirmed assumptions as possible. Experience has painfully shown how easy it is to make an (often implicit) assumption that turns out to be incorrect. An example is incorporating into a measurement the reading of a clock synchronized to a highly accurate source. It is easy to assume that the clock is therefore accurate; but due to software bugs, a loss of power in the source, or a loss of communication between the source and the clock, the clock could actually be quite inaccurate. This is not to argue that one must not make *any* assumptions when measuring, but rather that, to the extent which is practical, assump- tions should be tested. One powerful way for doing so involves checking for self-consistency. Such checking applies both to the observed value(s) of the measurement *and the values used by the mea- surement process itself*. A simple example of the former is that when computing a round trip time, one should check to see if it is negative. Since negative time intervals are non-physical, if it ever is negative that finding immediately flags an error. *These sorts of errors should then be investigated!* It is crucial to determine where the error lies, because only by doing so diligently can we build up faith in a methodology's fundamental soundness. For exam- ple, it could be that the round trip time is negative because during the measurement the clock was set backward in the process of synchro- nizing it with another source. But it could also be that the mea- surement program accesses uninitialized memory in one of its computa- tions and, only very rarely, that leads to a bogus computation. This second error is more serious, if the same program is used by others to perform the same measurement, since then they too will suffer from Paxson et al. [Page 23] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 incorrect results. Furthermore, once uncovered it can be completely fixed. A more subtle example of testing for self-consistency comes from gathering samples of one-way Internet delays. If one has a large sample of such delays, it may well be highly telling to, for example, fit a line to the pairs of (time of measurement, measured delay), to see if the resulting line has a clearly non-zero slope. If so, a possible interpretation is that one of the clocks used in the mea- surements is skewed relative to the other. Another interpretation is that the slope is actually due to genuine network effects. Determin- ing which is indeed the case will often be highly illuminating. (See [Pa97] for a discussion of distinguishing between relative clock skew and genuine network effects.) Furthermore, if making this check is part of the methodology, then a finding that the long-term slope is very near zero is positive evidence that the measurements are proba- bly not biased by a difference in skew. A final example illustrates checking the measurement process itself for self-consistency. Above we outline Poisson sampling techniques, based on generating exponentially-distributed intervals. A sound measurement methodology would include testing the generated intervals to see whether they are indeed exponentially distributed (and also to see if they suffer from correlation). In the appendix we discuss and give C code for one such technique, a general-purpose, well-regarded goodness-of-fit test called the Anderson-Darling test. Finally, we note that what is truly relevant for Poisson sampling of Internet metrics is often not when the measurements began but the wire times corresponding to the measurement process. These could well be different, due to complications on the hosts used to perform the measurement. Thus, even those with complete faith in their pseudo-random number generators and subsequent algorithms are encour- aged to consider how they might test the assumptions of each measure- ment procedure as much as possible. 11.3. Defining Statistical Distributions One way of describing a collection of measurements (a sample) is as a statistical distribution -- informally, as percentiles. There are several slightly different ways of doing so. In this section we define a standard definition to give uniformity to these descrip- tions. The "empirical distribution function" (EDF) of a set of scalar mea- surements is a function F(x) which for any x gives the fractional proportion of the total measurements that were <= x. If x is less Paxson et al. [Page 24] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 than the minimum value observed, then F(x) is 0. If it is greater or equal to the maximum value observed, then F(x) is 1. For example, given the 6 measurements: -2, 7, 7, 4, 18, -5 Then F(-8) = 0, F(-5) = 1/6, F(-5.0001) = 0, F(-4.999) = 1/6, F(7) = 5/6, F(18) = 1, F(239) = 1. Note that we can recover the different measured values and how many times each occurred from F(x) -- no information regarding the range in values is lost. Summarizing measurements using histograms, on the other hand, in general loses information about the different values observed, so the EDF is preferred. Using either the EDF or a histogram, however, we do lose information regarding the order in which the values were observed. Whether this loss is potentially significant will depend on the metric being mea- sured. We will use the term "percentile" to refer to the smallest value of x for which F(x) >= a given percentage. So the 50th percentile of the example above is 4, since F(4) = 3/6 = 50%; the 25th percentile is -2, since F(-5) = 1/6 < 25%, and F(-2) = 2/6 >= 25%; the 100th per- centile is 18; and the 0th percentile is -infinity, as is the 15th percentile. Care must be taken when using percentiles to summarize a sample, because they can lend an unwarranted appearance of more precision than is really available. Any such summary MUST include the sample size N, because any percentile difference finer than 1/N is below the resolution of the sample. See [DS86] for more details regarding EDF's. We close with a note on the common (and important!) notion of median. In statistics, the median of a distribution is defined to be the point X for which the probability of observing a value <= X is equal to the probability of observing a value > X. When estimating the median of a set of observations, the estimate depends on whether the number of observations, N, is odd or even: + If N is odd, then the 50th percentile as defined above is used as the estimated median. + If N is even, then the estimated median is the average of the cen- tral two observations; that is, if the observations are sorted in ascending order and numbered from 1 to N, where N = 2*K, then the estimated median is the average of the (K)'th and (K+1)'th obser- vations. Usually the term "estimated" is dropped from the phrase "estimated Paxson et al. [Page 25] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 median" and this value is simply referred to as the "median". 11.4. Testing For Goodness-of-Fit For some forms of measurement calibration we need to test whether a set of numbers is consistent with those numbers having been drawn from a particular distribution. An example is that to apply a self- consistency check to measurements made using a Poisson process, one test is to see whether the spacing between the sampling times does indeed reflect an exponential distribution; or if the dT/N approach discussed above was used, whether the times are uniformly distributed across [T, dT]. There are a large number of statistical goodness-of-fit techniques for performing such tests. See [DS86] for a thorough discussion. That reference recommends the Anderson-Darling EDF test as being a good all-purpose test, as well as one that is especially good at detecting deviations from a given distribution in the lower and upper tails of the EDF. It is important to understand that the nature of goodness-of-fit tests is that one first selects a "significance level", which is the probability that the test will erroneously declare that the EDF of a given set of measurements fails to match a particular distribution when in fact the measurements do indeed reflect that distribution. Unless otherwise stated, IPPM goodness-of-fit tests are done using 5% significance. This means that if the test is applied to 100 samples and 5 of those samples are deemed to have failed the test, then the samples are all consistent with the distribution being tested. If significantly more of the samples fail the test, then the assumption that the samples are consistent with the distribution being tested must be rejected. If significantly fewer of the samples fail the test, then the samples have potentially been doctored too well to fit the distribution. Similarly, some goodness-of-fit tests (including Anderson-Darling) can detect whether it is likely that a given sample was doctored. We also use a significance of 5% for this case; that is, the test will report that a given honest sample is "too good to be true" 5% of the time, so if the test reports this finding signifi- cantly more often than one time out of twenty, it is an indication that something unusual is occurring. The appendix gives sample C code for implementing the Anderson- Darling test, as well as further discussing its use. See [Pa94] for a discussion of goodness-of-fit and closeness-of-fit tests in the context of network measurement. Paxson et al. [Page 26] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 12. Avoiding Stochastic Metrics When defining metrics applying to a path, subpath, cloud, or other network element, we in general do not define them in stochastic terms (probabilities). We instead prefer a deterministic definition. So, for example, rather than defining a metric about a "packet loss prob- ability between A and B", we would define a metric about a "packet loss rate between A and B". (A measurement given by the first defi- nition might be "0.73", and by the second "73 packets out of 100".) The reason for this distinction is as follows. When definitions are made in terms of probabilities, there are often hidden assumptions in the definition about a stochastic model of the behavior being mea- sured. The fundamental goal with avoiding probabilities in our met- ric definitions is to avoid biasing our definitions by these hidden assumptions. For example, an easy hidden assumption to make is that packet loss in a network component due to queueing overflows can be described as something that happens to any given packet with a particular proba- bility. Usually, however, queueing drops are actually *determinis- tic*, and assuming that they should be described probabilistically can obscure crucial correlations between queueing drops among a set of packets. So it's better to explicitly note stochastic assump- tions, rather than have them sneak into our definitions implicitly. This does *not* mean that we abandon stochastic models for under- standing network performance! It only means that when defining IP metrics we avoid terms such as "probability" for terms like "propor- tion" or "rate". We will still use, for example, random sampling in order to estimate probabilities used by stochastic models related to the IP metrics. We also do not rule out the possibility of stochas- tic metrics when they are truly appropriate (for example, perhaps to model transmission errors caused by certain types of line noise). 13. Packets of Type P A fundamental property of many Internet metrics is that the value of the metric depends on the type of IP packet(s) used to make the mea- surement. Consider an IP-connectivity metric: one obtains different results depending on whether one is interested in connectivity for packets destined for well-known TCP ports or unreserved UDP ports, or those with invalid IP checksums, or those with TTL's of 16, for exam- ple. In some circumstances these distinctions will be highly inter- esting (for example, in the presence of firewalls, or RSVP reserva- tions). Paxson et al. [Page 27] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 Because of this distinction, we introduce the generic notion of a "packet of type P", where in some contexts P will be explicitly defined (i.e., exactly what type of packet we mean), partially defined (e.g., "with a payload of B octets"), or left generic. Thus we may talk about generic IP-type-P-connectivity or more specific IP- port-HTTP-connectivity. Some metrics and methodologies may be fruit- fully defined using generic type P definitions which are then made specific when performing actual measurements. Whenever a metric's value depends on the type of the packets involved in the metric, the metric's name will include either a specific type or a phrase such as "type-P". Thus we will not define an "IP- connectivity" metric but instead an "IP-type-P-connectivity" metric and/or perhaps an "IP-port-HTTP-connectivity" metric. This naming convention serves as an important reminder that one must be conscious of the exact type of traffic being measured. A closely related note: it would be very useful to know if a given Internet component treats equally a class C of different types of packets. If so, then any one of those types of packets can be used for subsequent measurement of the component. This suggests we devise a metric or suite of metrics that attempt to determine C. 14. Internet Addresses vs. Hosts When considering a metric for some path through the Internet, it is often natural to think about it as being for the path from Internet host H1 to host H2. A definition in these terms, though, can be ambiguous, because Internet hosts can be attached to more than one network. In this case, the result of the metric will depend on which of these networks is actually used. Because of this ambiguitiy, usually such definitions should instead be defined in terms of Internet IP addresses. For the common case of a unidirectional path through the Internet, we will use the term "Src" to denote the IP address of the beginning of the path, and "Dst" to denote the IP address of the end. 15. Standard-Formed Packets Unless otherwise stated, all metric definitions that concern IP pack- ets include an implicit assumption that the packet is *standard formed*. A packet is standard formed if it meets all of the follow- ing criteria: Paxson et al. [Page 28] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 + Its length as given in the IP header corresponds to the size of the IP header plus the size of the payload. + It includes a valid IP header: the version field is 4 (later, we will expand this to include 6); the header length is >= 5; the checksum is correct. + It is not an IP fragment. + The source and destination addresses correspond to the hosts in question. + Either the packet possesses sufficient TTL to travel from the source to the destination if the TTL is decremented by one at each hop, or it possesses the maximum TTL of 255. + It does not contain IP options unless explicitly noted. + If a transport header is present, it too contains a valid checksum and other valid fields. We further require that if a packet is described as having a "length of B octets", then 0 <= B <= 65535; and if B is the payload length in octets, then B <= (65535-IP header size in octets). So, for example, one might imagine defining an IP connectivity metric as "IP-type-P-connectivity for standard-formed packets with the IP TOS field set to 0", or, more succinctly, "IP-type-P-connectivity with the IP TOS field set to 0", since standard-formed is already implied by convention. A particular type of standard-formed packet often useful to consider is the "minimal IP packet from A to B" - this is an IP packet with the following properties: - It is standard-formed. - Its data payload is 0 octets. - It contains no options. - Its protocol field is 0 (Reserved). When defining IP metrics we keep in mind that no packet smaller or simpler than this can be transmitted over a correctly operating IP network. 16. Acknowledgements The comments of Brian Carpenter, Bill Cerveny, Padma Krishnaswamy and Jeff Sedayao are appreciated. Paxson et al. [Page 29] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 17. Security Considerations This memo raises no security issues. 18. Appendix Need Anderson-Darling C code here. Perhaps add C code for testing for independence via minimal lag-1 autocorrelation. FIX ME 19. References [AK96] G. Almes and S. Kalidindi, "A One-way Delay Metric for IPPM", Internet Draft <draft-ietf-bmwg-ippm-delay-00.txt>, November 1996. [BM92] I. Bilinskis and A. Mikelsons, Randomized Signal Processing, Prentice Hall International, 1992. [DS86] R. D'Agostino and M. Stephens, editors, Goodness-of-Fit Tech- niques, Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1986. [CPB93] K. Claffy, G. Polyzos, and H-W. Braun, ``Application of Sam- pling Methodologies to Network Traffic Characterization,'' Proc. SIG- COMM '93, pp. 194-203, San Francisco, September 1993. [FJ94] S. Floyd and V. Jacobson, ``The Synchronization of Periodic Routing Messages,'' IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 2(2), pp. 122-136, April 1994. [Mi92] D. Mills, "Network Time Protocol (v3)", April 1992 [Pa94] V. Paxson, ``Empirically-Derived Analytic Models of Wide-Area TCP Connections,'' IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 2(4), pp. 316-336, August 1994. [Pa96] V. Paxson, ``Towards a Framework for Defining Internet Perfor- mance Metrics,'' Proceedings of INET '96, ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/papers/metrics-framework-INET96.ps.Z [Pa97] V. Paxson, ``Measurements and Analysis of End-to-End Internet Dynamics,'' Ph.D. dissertation, U.C. Berkeley, 1997, ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/papers/vp-thesis/dis.ps.gz. Paxson et al. [Page 30] ID Framework for IP Performance Metrics July 1997 20. Authors' Addresses Vern Paxson <vern@ee.lbl.gov> MS 50B/2239 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 USA Phone: +1 510/486-7504 Guy Almes <almes@advanced.org> Advanced Network & Services, Inc. 200 Business Park Drive Armonk, NY 10504 USA Phone: +1 914/273-7863 Jamshid Mahdavi <mahdavi@psc.edu> Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center 4400 5th Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Phone: +1 412/268-6282 Matt Mathis <mathis@psc.edu> Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center 4400 5th Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Phone: +1 412/268-3319 Paxson et al. [Page 31]