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An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements

National research and education networks (NRENs) in developing regions such as Africa experience various performance issues due to inadequate infrastructure and resources. The South African National Research Network (SANReN) connects universities, research institutions, and oversees science projects...

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Main Author: Salie, Luqmaan
Other Authors: Chavula, Josiah
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Computer Science 2022
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access_status_str Open Access
author Salie, Luqmaan
author2 Chavula, Josiah
author_browse Chavula, Josiah
Salie, Luqmaan
author_facet Chavula, Josiah
Salie, Luqmaan
author_sort Salie, Luqmaan
collection Thesis
description National research and education networks (NRENs) in developing regions such as Africa experience various performance issues due to inadequate infrastructure and resources. The South African National Research Network (SANReN) connects universities, research institutions, and oversees science projects such as the Square Kilometre Array. In this study, we conduct active and passive measurements to assess the performance of SANReN and to identify problem areas in the network. Active measurements were done to determine network performance when accessing SANReN internally (using PerfSONAR) and externally (using Speedchecker). We found that SANReN needs to be reinforced in and around Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, and Durban. Universities in these cities had the highest delays and page load times. We found that the network traffic flowing from PE uses circuitous routes to flow to universities in Johannesburg and Pretoria, causing high delays (medians of 25.26 ms to WITS, 25.47 ms to UJ, and 25.95 ms to UNISA) and high page load times (medians of 237.07 ms to WITS, 272.09 ms to UNISA, 280.47 ms to UJ transferring 31594 bytes of data). Using Cape Town as the traffic source resulted in a low median throughput of 5.47 Gbps for internal active measurements. Throughput from Durban to Cape Town was low as well (4.91 Gbps), causing high page load times between these two cities (medians of 350.32 and 305.22 ms from Durban to UCT and UWC respectively). SANReN's passive measurements results show us that there is a ratio of 11.16:1 for download speed to upload speed. We also observe a ratio of 2.29:1 for outbound flows (uploads) to inbound flows. Thus, majority of traffic flows experience low throughput amounts. Based on the test results, we design an SDN model and compare its performance to SANReN. The SDN model's results show that it would increase throughput while decreasing delays and page load times.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:52:13.611Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2022
publishDateRange 2022
publishDateSort 2022
publisher Department of Computer Science
publisherStr Department of Computer Science
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/36058 An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements Salie, Luqmaan Chavula, Josiah computer science National research and education networks (NRENs) in developing regions such as Africa experience various performance issues due to inadequate infrastructure and resources. The South African National Research Network (SANReN) connects universities, research institutions, and oversees science projects such as the Square Kilometre Array. In this study, we conduct active and passive measurements to assess the performance of SANReN and to identify problem areas in the network. Active measurements were done to determine network performance when accessing SANReN internally (using PerfSONAR) and externally (using Speedchecker). We found that SANReN needs to be reinforced in and around Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, and Durban. Universities in these cities had the highest delays and page load times. We found that the network traffic flowing from PE uses circuitous routes to flow to universities in Johannesburg and Pretoria, causing high delays (medians of 25.26 ms to WITS, 25.47 ms to UJ, and 25.95 ms to UNISA) and high page load times (medians of 237.07 ms to WITS, 272.09 ms to UNISA, 280.47 ms to UJ transferring 31594 bytes of data). Using Cape Town as the traffic source resulted in a low median throughput of 5.47 Gbps for internal active measurements. Throughput from Durban to Cape Town was low as well (4.91 Gbps), causing high page load times between these two cities (medians of 350.32 and 305.22 ms from Durban to UCT and UWC respectively). SANReN's passive measurements results show us that there is a ratio of 11.16:1 for download speed to upload speed. We also observe a ratio of 2.29:1 for outbound flows (uploads) to inbound flows. Thus, majority of traffic flows experience low throughput amounts. Based on the test results, we design an SDN model and compare its performance to SANReN. The SDN model's results show that it would increase throughput while decreasing delays and page load times. 2022-03-14T05:13:02Z 2022-03-14T05:13:02Z 2021 2022-03-14T05:12:34Z Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/36058 eng application/pdf Department of Computer Science Faculty of Science
spellingShingle computer science
Salie, Luqmaan
An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements
thesis_degree_str Master's
title An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements
title_full An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements
title_fullStr An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements
title_full_unstemmed An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements
title_short An analysis of internet traffic flow in SANReN using active and passive measurements
title_sort analysis of internet traffic flow in sanren using active and passive measurements
topic computer science
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/36058
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