10-Gbps IP Network Measurement System Based on Application-Generated Packets Using Hardware Assistance and Off-the-Shelf PC

Targeting high-bandwidth applications such as video streaming services, we discuss advanced measurement systems for high-speed 10-Gbps networks. To verify service stability in such high-speed networks, we need to detect network quality under real environmental conditions. For example, test traffic injected into networks under-test for measurements should have the same complex characteristics as the video streaming traffic. For such measurements, we have built Internet protocol (IP) stream measurement systems by using our 10-Gbps network interface card with hardware-assisted active/passive monitor extensions based on low-cost off-the-shelf personal computers (PCs). After showing hardware requirements and our implementation of each hardware-assisted extensions, we report how we build pre-service and in-service network measurement systems to verify the feasibility of our hardware architecture. A traffic-playback system captures packets and stores traffic characteristics data without sampling any packets and then sends them precisely emulating the complex characteristics of the original traffic by using our hardware assistance. The generated traffic is useful as test traffic in pre-service measurement. A distributed in-service network monitoring system collects traffic characteristics at multiple sites by utilizing synchronized precise timestamps embedded in video streaming traffic. The results are presented on the operator's display. We report on their effectiveness by measuring 1.5-Gbps uncompressed high-definition television traffic flowing in the high-speed testbed IP network in Japan.