Dependency Detection Using a Fuzzy Engine

The discovery of dependencies between components of a network can reveal relationships among components of multi-tier applications and the underlying IT infrastructure, such as servers and databases. Knowledge of these dependencies is thus important for the management of large distributed, heterogeneous and virtualized systems, where it is difficult to maintain an accurate view of how network assets are functionally connected. In this paper we present a passive method that uses attributes of traffic flow records and derives traffic dependencies among network components using a flexible fuzzy inference mechanism. Simulations and evaluation with real traffic traces show the applicability of the approach for flow-based dependency detection.