Vijay Nair
Department of Statistics
University of Michigan
Active Network Tomography and Bicast Probing Experiments
Estimation of quality of service parameters, such as packet loss rates and delay distributions, is of considerable importance
to network administrators and service providers. We consider the active network tomography problem where the goal is to estimate packet loss rates and delay distributions of
all internal links in a network from measurements obtained from nodes located on the periphery. This is an example of a large-scale
statistical inverse problem. We will provide a brief review of the literature, including unicast and multicast probing schemes and introduce a
new method called bicast probing. Several methods of estimation for loss rates and delay distributions will be described, including the use of EM-algorithms for the MLEs and several
classes of least-squares estimates for loss rates. Some practical issues and results from simulation studies will also be discussed.
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