FEAT: Improving Accuracy in End-to-end Available Bandwidth Measurement

Abstract—This report describes our ongoing work on a new end-to-end available-bandwidth measurement tool: FEAT (Fish-Eye Availablebandwidth Tool). FEAT features a new dynamic pattern of probes called a Fisheye Stream. One fisheye stream covers a range of packet probing rates. A fisheye stream consists of a focus region, where the probing rates are sampled more frequently and the number of packets used at each rate is larger. This creates a fisheye effect that the focus region enables an easily identified “turning point” for accurate measurements. When the dynamic available bandwidth is outside the region, the surrounding regions enable the tool to automatically “refocus”. Fisheye streams offer several advantages over current probing schemes that are based on packet pairs, packet trains, or packet chirps. FEAT is also fast, nearly nonintrusive, and clock resolution insensitive. Experiments show that FEAT provides accurate estimations of the available bandwidth with low overhead compared to the existing techniques.