Systematic Performance Evaluation of Multipoint Protocols

TL;DR

This paper introduces an automated method using fault-oriented test generation to synthesize worst and best case scenarios for evaluating multipoint protocol performance, addressing complexity and delays in multicast networks.

Contribution

It presents a novel FSM-based algorithm extended with timing semantics for systematic scenario synthesis in multipoint protocol evaluation.

Findings

Scalable automatic synthesis of worst-case scenarios.

Effective evaluation of timer suppression mechanisms.

Improved understanding of protocol performance under various conditions.

Abstract

The advent of multipoint (multicast-based) applications and the growth and complexity of the Internet has complicated network protocol design and evaluation. In this paper, we present a method for automatic synthesis of worst and best case scenarios for multipoint protocol performance evaluation. Our method uses a fault-oriented test generation (FOTG) algorithm for searching the protocol and system state space to synthesize these scenarios. The algorithm is based on a global finite state machine (FSM) model. We extend the algorithm with timing semantics to handle end-to-end delays and address performance criteria. We introduce the notion of a virtual LAN to represent delays of the underlying multicast distribution tree. As a case study, we use our method to evaluate variants of the timer suppression mechanism, used in various multipoint protocols, with respect to two performance criteria: overhead of response messages and response time. Simulation results for reliable multicast protocols show that our method provides a scalable way for synthesizing worst-case scenarios automatically. We expect our method to serve as a model for applying systematic scenario generation to other multipoint protocols.