On Mapping the Interconnections in Today’s Internet

Speaker : Reza Rejaie
University of Oregon
Date: 06/06/2018
Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Location: LINCS Seminars room

Abstract

Internet interconnections are the means by which networks exchange traffic between one another. These interconnections are typically established in facilities that have known geographic locations, and are owned and operated by so-called colocation and interconnection service providers (e.g., Equinox, CoreSite, and EdgeConneX). These previously under-studied colocation facilities and the critical role they play in solving the notoriously difficult problem of obtaining a comprehensive view of the structure and evolution of the interconnections in today’s Internet are the focus of this talk.
We present mi2, a new approach for mapping Internet interconnections inside a given colocation facility. We infer the existence of interconnections from localized traceroutes and use the Belief Propagation algorithm on a specially defined Markov Random Field graphical model to geolocate them to a target facility. We evaluate mi2 by applying it to a diverse set of US-based colocation facilities. In the process, we compare our results against those obtained by two recently developed related techniques, and discuss observed discrepancies that result from how the different techniques determine the ownership of (border) routers. We also report on drastic changes in today’s Internet interconnection ecosystem (e.g., new infrastructures in the form of cloud exchanges that offer new types of interconnections) and reflect upon their far-reaching implications for obtaining an accurate and comprehensive map of the Internet’s interconnections.
This is joint work with Reza Motamedi, Bahador Yeganeh (University of Oregon), Balakrishnan Chandrasekaran (Technische Universität Berlin), Bruce M. Maggs (Duke University/Akamai Technologies) and Walter Willinger (NIKSUN, Inc.)