Test Plan and Results for
Advancing RFC 2680 on the Standards TrackAT&T Labs200 Laurel Avenue SouthMiddletownNJ07748USA+1 732 420 1239lencia@att.comDeutsche TelekomHeinrich Hertz Str. 3-764295DarmstadtGermany+49 6151 58 12747Ruediger.Geib@telekom.deAT&T Labs200 Laurel Avenue SouthMiddletownNJ07748USA+1 732 420 1571+1 732 368 1192acmorton@att.comhttp://home.comcast.net/~acmacm/Technical University DarmstadtDarmstadtGermanymatthias_michael.wieser@stud.tu-darmstadt.deThis memo proposes to advance a performance metric RFC along the
standards track, specifically RFC 2680 on One-way Loss Metrics.
Observing that the metric definitions themselves should be the primary
focus rather than the implementations of metrics, this memo describes
the test procedures to evaluate specific metric requirement clauses to
determine if the requirement has been interpreted and implemented as
intended. Two completely independent implementations have been tested
against the key specifications of RFC 2680.The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.The IETF (specifically the IP Performance Metrics working group, or
IPPM) has considered how to advance their metrics along the standards
track since 2001.The renewed work effort sought to investigate ways in which the
measurement variability could be reduced and thereby simplify the
problem of comparison for equivalence. As a result, there is consensus
(captured in ) that equivalent results from
independent implementations of metric specifications are sufficient
evidence that the specifications themselves are clear and unambiguous;
it is the parallel concept of protocol interoperability for metric
specifications. The advancement process either produces confidence that
the metric definitions and supporting material are clearly worded and
unambiguous, OR, identifies ways in which the metric definitions should
be revised to achieve clarity. It is a non-goal to compare the specific
implementations themselves.The process also permits identification of options described in the
metric RFC that were not implemented, so that they can be removed from
the advancing specification (this is an aspect more typical of protocol
advancement along the standards track).This memo's purpose is to implement the current approach for and document the results.In particular, this memo documents consensus on the extent of
tolerable errors when assessing equivalence in the results. In
discussions, the IPPM working group agreed that test plan and procedures
should include the threshold for determining equivalence, and this
information should be available in advance of cross-implementation
comparisons. This memo includes procedures for same-implementation
comparisons to help set the equivalence threshold.Another aspect of the metric RFC advancement process is the
requirement to document the work and results. The procedures of are expanded in,
including sample implementation and interoperability reports. This memo
follows the template in for the report that
accompanies the protocol action request submitted to the Area Director,
including description of the test set-up, procedures, results for each
implementation, and conclusions.The conclusion reached is that should be
advanced on the Standards Track with modifications. The revised text of
RFC 2680bis is ready for review , but awaits work-in progress to
update the IPPM Framework . Therefore, this memo
documents the information to support
advancement, and the approval of RFC2680bis is left for future
action.This plan is intended to cover all critical requirements and
sections of .Note that there are only five instances of the requirement term
"MUST" in outside of the boilerplate and
reference.Material may be added as it is "discovered" (apparently, not all
requirements use requirements language).The process described in Section 3.5 of
takes as a first principle that the metric definitions, embodied in the
text of the RFCs, are the objects that require evaluation and possible
revision in order to advance to the next step on the standards track.
This memo follows that process.One metric implementation used was NetProbe version 5.8.5 (an earlier
version is used in the WIPM system and deployed world-wide ). NetProbe uses UDP packets of variable size, and can
produce test streams with Periodic or Poisson
sample distributions.The other metric implementation used was Perfas+ version 3.1,
developed by Deutsche Telekom . Perfas+ uses UDP
unicast packets of variable size (but also supports TCP and multicast).
Test streams with periodic, Poisson, or uniform sample distributions may
be used.Figure 1 shows a view of the test path as each Implementation's test
flows pass through the Internet and the L2TPv3 tunnel IDs (1 and 2),
based on Figure 1 of .The testing employs the Layer 2 Tunnel Protocol, version 3 (L2TPv3)
tunnel between test sites on the Internet. The
tunnel IP and L2TPv3 headers are intended to conceal the test equipment
addresses and ports from hash functions that would tend to spread
different test streams across parallel network resources, with likely
variation in performance as a result.At each end of the tunnel, one pair of VLANs encapsulated in the
tunnel are looped-back so that test traffic is returned to each test
site. Thus, test streams traverse the L2TP tunnel twice, but appear to
be one-way tests from the test equipment point of view.The network emulator is a host running Fedora 14 Linux with IP forwarding enabled and the "netem" Network
emulator as part of the Fedora Kernel 2.6.35.11
loaded and operating. The standard kernel is "tickless" replacing the
previous periodic timer (250HZ, with 4ms uncertainty) interrupts with
on-demand interrupts. Connectivity across the netem/Fedora host was
accomplished by bridging Ethernet VLAN interfaces together with "brctl"
commands (e.g., eth1.100 <-> eth2.100). The netem emulator was
activated on one interface (eth1) and only operates on test streams
traveling in one direction. In some tests, independent netem instances
operated separately on each VLAN. See the Appendix for more details.The links between the netem emulator host and router and switch were
found to be 100baseTx-HD (100Mbps half duplex) as reported by "mii-tool"
, when testing was complete. Use of half duplex
was not intended, but probably added a small amount of delay variation
that could have been avoided in full duplex mode.Each individual test was run with common packet rates (1 pps, 10pps)
Poisson/Periodic distributions, and IP packet sizes of 64, 340, and 500
Bytes.For these tests, a stream of at least 300 packets was sent from
source to destination in each implementation. Periodic streams (as per
) with 1 second spacing were used, except as
noted.As required in Section 2.8.1 of , packet
Type-P must be reported. The packet Type-P for this test was IP-UDP with
Best Effort DSCP. These headers were encapsulated according to the
L2TPv3 specifications , and thus may not
influence the treatment received as the packets traversed the
Internet.With the L2TPv3 tunnel in use, the metric name for the testing
configured here (with respect to the IP header exposed to Internet
processing) is:Type-IP-protocol-115-One-way-Packet-Loss-<StreamType>-StreamWith (Section 3.2. ) metric parameters:+ Src, the IP address of a host (12.3.167.16 or 193.159.144.8)+ Dst, the IP address of a host (193.159.144.8 or 12.3.167.16)+ T0, a time+ Tf, a time+ lambda, a rate in reciprocal seconds+ Thresh, a maximum waiting time in seconds (see Section 2.8.2 of
) and (Section 3.8. )Metric Units: A sequence of pairs; the elements of each pair are:+ T, a time, and+ L, either a zero or a oneThe values of T in the sequence are monotonically increasing. Note
that T would be a valid parameter of *singleton*
Type-P-One-way-Packet-Loss, and that L would be a valid value of
Type-P-One-way-Packet Loss (see Section 2 of ).Also, Section 2.8.4 of recommends that the
path SHOULD be reported. In this test set-up, most of the path details
will be concealed from the implementations by the L2TPv3 tunnels, thus a
more informative path trace route can be conducted by the routers at
each location.When NetProbe is used in production, a traceroute is conducted in
parallel at the outset of measurements.Perfas+ does not support traceroute.It was only possible to conduct the traceroute for the measured path
on one of the tunnel-head routers (the normal trace facilities of the
measurement systems are confounded by the L2TPv3 tunnel
encapsulation).An implementation is required to report calibration results on clock
synchronization in Section 2.8.3 of (also
required in Section 3.7 of for sample
metrics).Also, it is recommended to report the probability that a packet
successfully arriving at the destination network interface is
incorrectly designated as lost due to resource exhaustion in Section
2.8.3 of .For NetProbe and Perfas+ clock synchronization test results, refer
to Section 4 of .Since both measurement implementations have resource limitations,
it is theoretically possible that these limits could be exceeded and a
packet that arrived at the destination successfully might be discarded
in error.In previous test efforts , NetProbe produced 6
multicast streams with an aggregate bit rate over 53 Mbit/s, in order
to characterize the 1-way capacity of a NISTNet-based emulator.
Neither the emulator nor the pair of NetProbe implementations used in
this testing dropped any packets in these streams.The maximum load used here between any 2 NetProbe implementations
was 11.5 Mbit/s divided equally among 3 unicast test streams. We
concluded that steady resource usage does not contribute error
(additional loss) to the measurements.In this section, we provide the numerical limits on comparisons
between implementations in order to declare that the results are
equivalent and therefore, the tested specification is clear.A key point is that the allowable errors, corrections, and confidence
levels only need to be sufficient to detect misinterpretation of the
tested specification resulting in diverging implementations.Also, the allowable error must be sufficient to compensate for
measured path differences. It was simply not possible to measure fully
identical paths in the VLAN-loopback test configuration used, and this
practical compromise must be taken into account.For Anderson-Darling K-sample (ADK) comparisons,
the required confidence factor for the cross-implementation comparisons
SHALL be the smallest of:0.95 confidence factor at 1 packet resolution, orthe smallest confidence factor (in combination with resolution)
of the two same-implementation comparisons for the same test
conditions (if the number of streams is sufficient to allow such
comparisons).For Anderson-Darling Goodness-of-Fit (ADGoF)
comparisons, the required level of significance for the
same-implementation Goodness-of-Fit (GoF) SHALL be 0.05 or 5%, as
specified in Section 11.4 of . This is
equivalent to a 95% confidence factor.This section describes some results from production network
(cross-Internet) tests with measurement devices implementing IPPM
metrics and a network emulator to create relevant conditions, to
determine whether the metric definitions were interpreted consistently
by implementors.The procedures are similar contained in Appendix A.1 of for One-way Delay.This test determines if implementations produce results that appear
to come from a common packet loss distribution, as an overall
evaluation of Section 3 of , "A Definition for
Samples of One-way Packet Loss". Same-implementation comparison
results help to set the threshold of equivalence that will be applied
to cross-implementation comparisons.This test is intended to evaluate measurements in sections 2, 3,
and 4 of .By testing the extent to which the counts of one-way packet loss
counts on different test streams of two
implementations appear to be from the same loss process, we reduce
comparison steps because comparing the resulting summary statistics
(as defined in Section 4 of ) would require a
redundant set of equivalence evaluations. We can easily check whether
the single statistic in Section 4 of was
implemented, and report on that fact.Configure an L2TPv3 path between test sites, and each pair of
measurement devices to operate tests in their designated pair of
VLANs.Measure a sample of one-way packet loss singletons with 2 or
more implementations, using identical options and network emulator
settings (if used).Measure a sample of one-way packet loss singletons with *four
or more* instances of the *same* implementations, using identical
options, noting that connectivity differences SHOULD be the same
as for cross implementation testing.If less than ten test streams are available, skip to step
7.Apply the ADK comparison procedures (see Appendix C of ) and determine the resolution and confidence
factor for distribution equivalence of each same-implementation
comparison and each cross-implementation comparison.Take the coarsest resolution and confidence factor for
distribution equivalence from the same-implementation pairs, or
the limit defined in Section 5 above, as a limit on the
equivalence threshold for these experimental conditions.Compare the cross-implementation ADK performance with the
equivalence threshold determined in step 5 to determine if
equivalence can be declared.The metric parameters varied for each loss test, and they are
listed first in each sub-section below.The cross-implementation comparison uses a simple ADK analysis
, where all NetProbe loss
counts are compared with all Perfas+ loss results.In the result analysis of this section:All comparisons used 1 packet resolution.No Correction Factors were applied.The 0.95 confidence factor (1.960 for cross-implementation
comparison) was used.Tests described in this section used:IP header + payload = 340 octetsPeriodic sampling at 1 packet per secondTest duration = 1200 seconds (during April 7, 2011, EDT)The netem emulator was set for 100ms constant delay, with 10%
loss ratio. In this experiment, the netem emulator was configured to
operate independently on each VLAN and thus the emulator itself is a
potential source of error when comparing streams that traverse the
test path in different directions.The cross-implementation comparisons pass the ADK criterion.Tests described in this section used:IP header + payload = 64 octetsPeriodic sampling at 1 packet per secondTest duration = 300 seconds (during March 24, 2011, EDT)The netem emulator was set for 0ms constant delay, with 10%
loss ratio.The cross-implementation comparisons pass the ADK criterion.Tests described in this section used:IP header + payload = 64 octetsPoisson sampling at lambda = 1 packet per secondTest duration = 20 minutes (during April 27, 2011, EDT)The netem configuration was 0ms delay and 10% loss, but
there were two passes through an emulator for each stream, and loss
emulation was present for 18 minutes of the 20 minute test.The cross-implementation comparisons barely pass the ADK
criterion at 95% = 1.960 when adjusting for ties.We conclude that the two implementations are capable of producing
equivalent one-way packet loss measurements based on their
interpretation of .This test determines if implementations use the same configured
maximum waiting time delay from one measurement to another under
different delay conditions, and correctly declare packets arriving in
excess of the waiting time threshold as lost.See Section 2.8.2 of .Configure an L2TPv3 path between test sites, and each pair of
measurement devices to operate tests in their designated pair of
VLANs.Configure the network emulator to add 1sec one-way constant
delay in one direction of transmission.Measure (average) one-way delay with 2 or more implementations,
using identical waiting time thresholds (Thresh) for loss set at 3
seconds.Configure the network emulator to add 3 sec one-way constant
delay in one direction of transmission equivalent to 2 seconds of
additional one-way delay (or change the path delay while test is
in progress, when there are sufficient packets at the first delay
setting).Repeat/continue measurements.Observe that the increase measured in step 5 caused all packets
with 2 sec additional delay to be declared lost, and that all
packets that arrive successfully in step 3 are assigned a valid
one-way delay.The common parameters used for tests in this section are:IP header + payload = 64 octetsPoisson sampling at lambda = 1 packet per secondTest duration = 900 seconds total (March 21, 2011 EDT)The netem emulator settings added constant delays as
specified in the procedure above.In NetProbe, the Loss Threshold was implemented uniformly over
all packets as a post-processing routine. With the Loss Threshold
set at 3 seconds, all packets with one-way delay >3 seconds were
marked "Lost" and included in the Lost Packet list with their
transmission time (as required in Section 3.3 of ). This resulted in 342 packets designated as lost
in one of the test streams (with average delay = 3.091 sec).Perfas+ uses a fixed Loss Threshold which was not adjustable
during this study. The Loss Threshold is approximately one minute,
and emulation of a delay of this size was not attempted. However, it
is possible to implement any delay threshold desired with a
post-processing routine and subsequent analysis. Using this method,
195 packets would be declared lost (with average delay = 3.091
sec).Both implementations assume that any constant delay value desired
can be used as the Loss Threshold, since all delays are stored as a
pair <Time, Delay> as required in .
This is a simple way to enforce the constant loss threshold
envisioned in (see specific section
reference above). We take the position that the assumption of
post-processing is compliant, and that the text of the RFC should be
revised slightly to include this point.Section 3.6 of indicates that
implementations need to ensure that reordered packets are handled
correctly using an uncapitalized "must". In essence, this is an
implied requirement because the correct packet must be identified as
lost if it fails to arrive before its delay threshold under all
circumstances, and reordering is always a possibility on IP network
paths. See for the definition of reordering
used in IETF standard-compliant measurements.Using the procedure of section 6.1, the netem emulator was set to
introduce 10% loss, significant delay (2000 ms) and delay variation
(1000 ms), which was sufficient to produce packet reordering because
each packet's emulated delay is independent from others.The tests described in this section used:IP header + payload = 64 octetsPeriodic sampling = 1 packet per secondTest duration = 600 seconds (during May 2, 2011, EDT)The test results indicate that extensive reordering was present.
Both implementations capture the extensive delay variation between
adjacent packets. In NetProbe, packet arrival order is preserved in
the raw measurement files, so an examination of arrival packet
sequence numbers also indicates reordering.Despite extensive continuous packet reordering present in the
transmission path, the distributions of loss counts from the two
implementations pass the ADK criterion at 95% = 1.960.Section 3.7 of indicates that
implementations need to ensure that their sending process is
reasonably close to a classic Poisson distribution when used. Much
more detail on sample distribution generation and Goodness-of-Fit
testing is specified in Section 11.4 of and
the Appendix of .In this section, each implementation's Poisson distribution is
compared with an idealistic version of the distribution available in
the base functionality of the R-tool for Statistical Analysis, and performed using the Anderson-Darling
Goodness-of-Fit test package (ADGofTest) . The
Goodness-of-Fit criterion derived from
requires a test statistic value AD <= 2.492 for 5% significance.
The Appendix of also notes that there may be
difficulty satisfying the ADGofTest when the sample includes many
packets (when 8192 were used, the test always failed, but smaller sets
of the stream passed).Both implementations were configured to produce Poisson
distributions with lambda = 1 packet per second, and assign received
packet timestamps in the measurement application (above UDP layer, see
the calibration results in Section 4 of for
assessment of error).Section 11.4 of suggests three possible
measurement points to evaluate the Poisson distribution. The
NetProbe analysis uses "user-level timestamps made just before or
after the system call for transmitting the packet".The statistical summary for two NetProbe streams is below:We see that both the Means are near the specified lambda = 1.The results of ADGoF tests for these two streams is shown
below:We see that both 100 and 1000 packet sets from two different
streams (s1 and s2) all passed the AD <= 2.492 criterion.Section 11.4 of suggests three possible
measurement points to evaluate the Poisson distribution. The Perfas+
analysis uses "wire times for the packets as recorded using a packet
filter". However, due to limited access at the Perfas+ side of the
test setup, the captures were made after the Perfas+ streams
traversed the production network, adding a small amount of unwanted
delay variation to the wire times (and possibly error due to packet
loss).The statistical summary for two Perfas+ streams is below:We see that both the means are near the specified lambda = 1.The results of ADGoF tests for these two streams is shown
below:We see that both 193, 100, and 93 packet sets from two different
streams (p1 and p2) all passed the AD <= 2.492 criterion.Both NetProbe and Perfas+ implementations produce adequate
Poisson distributions according to the Anderson-Darling
Goodness-of-Fit at the 5% significance (1-alpha = 0.05, or 95%
confidence level).We check which statistics were implemented, and report on those
facts, noting that Section 4 of does not
specify the calculations exactly, and gives only some illustrative
examples.We note that implementations refer to this metric as a loss ratio,
and this is an area for likely revision of the text to make it more
consistent with wide-spread usage.This memo concludes that should be advanced
on the standards track, and recommends the following edits to improve
the text (which are not deemed significant enough to affect
maturity).Revise Type-P-One-way-Packet-Loss-Ave to
Type-P-One-way-Delay-Packet-Loss-Ratio .Regarding implementation of the loss delay threshold (section
6.2), the assumption of post-processing is compliant, and the text
of RFC 2680bis should be revised slightly to include this point.The IETF has reached consensus on guidance for reporting metrics
in , and this memo should be referenced in
RFC2680bis to incorporate recent experience where appropriate.We note that there are at least two Errata on and these should be processed as part of the editing
process.We recognize the existence of BCP 170
providing guidelines for development of drafts describing new
performance metrics. However, the advancement of represents fine-tuning of long-standing
specifications based on experience that helped to formulate BCP 170, and
material that satisfies some of the requirements of can be found in other RFCs, such as the IPPM
Framework . Thus, no specific changes to address
BCP 170 guidelines are recommended for RFC 2680bis.The security considerations that apply to any active measurement of
live networks are relevant here as well. See
and .This memo makes no requests of IANA, and the authors hope that IANA
personnel will be able to use their valuable time in other worthwhile
pursuits.The authors thank Lars Eggert for his continued encouragement to
advance the IPPM metrics during his tenure as AD Advisor.Nicole Kowalski supplied the needed CPE router for the NetProbe side
of the test set-up, and graciously managed her testing in spite of
issues caused by dual-use of the router. Thanks Nicole!The "NetProbe Team" also acknowledges many useful discussions on
statistical interpretation with Ganga Maguluri.Constructive comments and helpful reviews where also provided by Bill
Cerveny, Joachim Fabini, and Ann Cerveny.This Appendix provides some background information on the host
configuration and sample tc commands for the "netem" network emulator,
as described in Section 3 and Figure 1 in the body of this memo. These
details are also applicable to the test plan in .The host interface and configuration is shown below:Some sample tc command lines controlling netem and its impairments
are given below.K-sample Anderson-Darling Tests of Fit, for Continuous and
Discrete casesBoeing Computer
ServicesSimon Fraser Universityhttp://fedoraproject.org/http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/mii-tool.8.htmlhttp://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/networking/netemR: A language and environment for statistical computing. R
Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN
3-900051-07-0, URL http://www.R-project.org/Boeing Computer
Servicesadk: Anderson-Darling K-Sample Test and Combinations of Such
Tests. R package version 1.0.Boeing Computer
ServicesADGofTest: Anderson-Darling Goodness-of-Fit Test. R package
version 0.3.Boeing Computer
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