Model-based real-time volume control for interactive network traffic replay

Traffic volume control is one of the fundamental requirements in traffic generation and transformation. However, due to the complex interactions between the generated traffic and replay environment (delay, packet loss, connection blocking, etc), controlling traffic volume in interactive network traffic replay becomes a challenging problem. In this paper, we present a novel model-based analytical method to address this problem where the generated traffic volume is regulated through adjustment of input traffic volume. By analyzing the replay mechanism in terms of how packets are processed, and properly choosing buffered packets amount and to-be-received packets amount as system states, we present a novel model-based analytical method to obtain the desired input volume. The traffic volume control problem is then converted to a state prediction problem where we employ Recursive Least Square (RLS) filter to predict system states. As compared to other adaptive control techniques, our method does not involve any learning scheme and hence completely requires no convergence time. Experimental studies further indicate that our method is efficient in tracking target traffic volume (both static and time-varying) and works under a wide range of network conditions.