IP flow identification for IP traffic carried over switched networks

Today much of the Internet backbone traffic is carried over switched networks. Switching within these backbone networks is done primarily by using permanent virtual circuits to interconnect internal routers. To improve efficiency, schemes have been suggested that involve identifying LP data flows at the edge of the switched network, and then carrying these flows over a virtual connection through the switched network. To interface with the Internet as it is today, there must be a way to identify flows that are long enough to economically warrant setting up a switched connection. Shorter flows would still be routed on a segment by segment basis. In this paper we look at the effectiveness of several flow identification algorithms, and compare them to the effectiveness of an optimum scheme. We recommend a flow definition based on client-server connections (C-S flow) that results in the lowest SVC setup rate and allows QoS to be applied based on the application. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.