An experimental characterization of the internal generation cycle of an open-source software traffic generator

The paper is the first step towards the goal of evaluating the measurement uncertainty of the inter-departure times (IDT) provided by software traffic generator. The paper is focused on the experimental characterization of the internal generation cycle of a well-known, open source generator, namely D-ITG, for different systems, and under the best possible conditions, i.e. with the minimum system loads. The resulting performance may be seen as the ideal limit the generator can tend to. The extended abstract presents the rationale for the activity, the underlying methodology and some initial tests that highlight the relevance of the clock resolution in the accuracy of IDT.