ITR: A Multiresolution Analysis for the Global Internet

一个连接学术界和工业界的跨学科团队提出了一个联合努力来研究全球互联网的动态，超越了传统的单一时间尺度、单一网络、单一协议的范例，提出了一种紧凑地结合了广泛的时间尺度、广泛的空间网络拓扑结构以及相互作用和跨越不同网络层的多种协议的描述。要成功设计和开发下一代互联网协议和工程工具，必须实现对复杂大规模网络的全球、多尺度和多层次的了解，其中与稳健性、可扩展性和效率相关的问题是核心问题。在这一联合努力中，有三个主要因素。首先，研究人员计划充分利用一种新的网络范围测量数据集--在数量和质量上都是前所未有的--这些数据集是最近令人兴奋的网络研究项目的结果，例如国家互联网测量基础设施项目(NIMI)。这类数据的另一个来源将是各种互联网服务提供商，如其中一家私人投资者的雇主AT&amp；T，如果这项提议被接受，他们也将提供补充资金。其次，研究人员将依赖于一种新的网络模拟工具，如SSFNET，它主要由我们的另一家PI开发，能够在规模和细节上模拟前所未有的互联网。所有这些新的测量，无论是真实的还是虚拟的，都将构成具有非常高的特定于网络的语义内容的巨大数据集，为数据分析带来全新的挑战。这就是第三个因素的用武之地：由多个PI开发的多尺度和多分辨率/小波技术将在分析、可视化和揭示这些网络测量中包含的丰富信息方面发挥核心作用。尽管小波分解的灵活性和速度在过去的许多应用中都得到了很好的应用，包括在测量的网络流量中对某些类型的时间尺度行为进行经验观察，但目前已知和使用的技术还不能应对可用和预期的互联网数据带来的迷人的新挑战。该项目的一个中心目标是开发适合互联网的多分辨率技术，该技术符合基本互联网结构的多尺度性质，并可以根据测量结果逐步进行验证。研究人员预计，在计算机图形学、不规则抽样和散乱数据近似的背景下发展起来的工具和理论将被用于这一目的。提出的研究工作的最终目标是识别可以通过快速算法从测量数据中提取的有趣模式，这些模式与物理概念相关联，在网络环境中具有意义，表征网络的不同状态或行为，并且可以帮助开发新的网络测量分析和可视化技术，以支持未来互联网体系结构的新一代监控和工程工具。鉴于这一领域仍有许多未知之处，希望在几年内实现这一目标可能是不现实的。然而，我们相信，只有像我们这样的跨学科努力才有希望在这个方向上取得任何成就；我们希望我们的合作将带来更深层次的洞察和理解；首先确定模型、模式、各种外部因素和协议的影响；以及初步瞥见潜在的“互联网物理学”--对基本网络机制和用户行为如何促成当今互联网中令人着迷的动态的坚实理解。

An interdisciplinary team, bridging academia and industry, proposes a united effort to study the dynamics of the global Internet, moving beyond the traditional single-timescale, single-network, single-protocol paradigm to a description that compactly incorporates a wide range of time-scales, a broad spectrum of spatial network topology structures, andmultiple protocols interacting with one another and across the different networking layers. Achieving such a global, multi-scale, and multi-layer understanding of complex large-scale networks is imperative for the successful design and development of the next-generation Internet protocols and engineering tools, where issues related to robustness,scalability, and efficiency take center stage. In this united effort, there are three main ingredients. First, the researchers plan to fully exploit a new breed of datasets of network-wide measurements - unprecedented in volume and quality - that are the result of recent exciting networking research projects, such as the National Internet Measurement Infrastructure project (NIMI). Another source of such data will be various Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as AT&T, employer of one of the PIs, which will also provide supplementary funding if this proposal is accepted. Second, the researchers will rely on a new breed of network simulation tools, such as SSFNET, largely developed by another of our PIs, and capable of simulating internetworks unprecedented in scale and detail. All these new measurements, whether real or virtual, will constitute huge datasets with very high and networking-specific semantic content, creating completely novel challenges for data analysis. This is where the third ingredient comes in: multiscale and multiresolution/wavelet techniques, developed by several of the PIs, will take center stage when it comes to analyzing, visualizing, and uncovering the rich information that is contained in these network measurements. Although the flexibility and the speed of wavelet decompositions have been put to good use in the past in many applications, including the empirical observation of certain types of time-scaling behaviors in measured network traffic, the technology as it is known and used today cannot yet cope with the fascinating new challenges posed by the available and anticipated Internet data. A central objective of this project is to develop Internet-appropriate multiresolution techniques that match the multiscale nature of the underlying Internet structure and can be validated step-by-step against measurements. The researchers expect that tools and theories that have been developed in the context of computer graphics, irregular sampling, and scattered data approximation will be utilized to this end. The ultimate goal of the proposed research effort is to identify interesting patterns that can be extracted from the measured data via fast algorithms, that are linked to physical concepts and are meaningful in the networking context, that characterize different states or behaviors of the network, and that can aid the development of novel network measurement analysis and visualization techniques in support of a new generation of monitoring and engineering tools for future Internet architectures. Given that so much of this area is still uncharted, it may be not realistic to hope to attain this goal in a few years' time. Nevertheless, we are convinced that only an interdisciplinary effort like ours can hope to achieve anything in this direction; we expect that our collaboration will lead to deeper insights and understanding; a first identification of models, patterns, the influences of various external factors and protocols; and an initial glimpse at the underlying "physics of the Internet" - a solid understanding of how basic networking mechanisms and user behaviors contribute to the fascinating dynamic observed in today's Internet.