A Unified Framework for Flow Classification

IP traffic or Internet flow classification has played an important role in many network activities. Many works have been carried out for the past several years targeting different goals including Quality-of-Service support, security, management, and provisioning. However, these approaches are developed and evaluated separately without a general model that can be used to identify, categorize, and compare them. Thus, it is difficult for a newcomer to understand the principle of flow classification and to find a suitable method for her domain. This paper brings forth a mathematical model that describes the flow classification components and processes on an abstract level. We then classify existing flow classification approaches and compare them in a unified framework.