DAFA: Distributed Application Flow Analyzer

This paper presents a new family of tools developed for application performance analysis via TCP flow analysis in N-tier application domains. Given the application flow signature the DAFA (Distributed Application Flow Analyzer) monitors TCP flows and maps the transactions observed over the network to the application flow signature provided. The DAFA offers the groundwork for application flow signature discovery by mapping the interconnected TCP sessions of an N-tier application. The DAFA also provides unique statistical data pertaining to the network traffic generated by these networked applications. The ability to map TCP flows over the application signature enables one to better estimate the bottlenecks in network and application deployment.