Client-side Active Measurements Without Application Control

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for content providers to perform active network measurements directly from clients without needing application control, leveraging W3C Network Error Logging features.

Contribution

It presents a novel client-side active measurement technique that does not require application control, expanding measurement capabilities for content providers.

Findings

Enables client-side active measurements without application control

Uses W3C Network Error Logging to induce browser connections

Facilitates performance monitoring for content providers

Abstract

Monitoring performance and availability are critical to operating successful content provider networks. Internet measurements provide data needed for traffic engineering, alerting, and network diagnostics. While there are significant benefits to combining server-side passive measurements with end-user active measurements, these capabilities are limited to a small number of content providers with both network and application control. In this work, we present a solution to a long-standing problem for a method to issue active measurements from clients without application control. Our approach uses features of the W3C Network Error Logging specification that allow a CDN to induce a browser connection to an HTTPS server of the CDN's choosing.