Estimating Server Load Based on its Correlation with TCP SYN Response Time

In this paper, we show that server load correlates with TCP SYN response time (SRT), that is, the time from SYN to SYN+ACK segments at the server side. For this, it applies the innovative approach of modeling the SRT with an appropriate α-stable heavy tail distribution. We also show that α- stable distribution parameters are related to the server load the connection is attempted to. This approach provides a nonintrusive way to estimate the server load, and it can be useful to identify if a problem in a distributed application is caused by the end system, or to distribute the load among servers. Finally, based on obtained results, we propose a method that estimates server load based on SRT.