Active measurements are integral to the operation and management of networks, and invaluable to supporting empirical network research. Unfortunately, it is often cost-prohibitive and logistically difficult to widely deploy measurement nodes, especially in the core. In this work, we consider the feasibility of tightly integrating measurement within the infrastructure by using Software Defined Networks (SDNs). We introduce "SDN as Active Measurement Infrastructure" (SAAMI) to enable measurements to originate from any location where SDN is deployed, removing the need for dedicated measurement nodes and increasing vantage point diversity. We implement ping and traceroute using SAAMI, as well as a proof-of-concept custom measurement protocol to demonstrate the power and ease of SAAMI's open framework. Via a large-scale measurement campaign using SDN switches as vantage points, we show that SAAMI is accurate, scalable, and extensible.
@cite_18: Networks are getting larger and more complex; yet administrators rely on rudimentary tools such as ping and traceroute to debug problems. We propose an automated and systematic approach for testing and debugging networks called "Automatic Test Packet Generation" (ATPG). ATPG reads router configurations and generates a device-independent model. The model is used to generate a minimum set of test packets to (minimally) exercise every link in the network or (maximally) exercise every rule in the network. Test packets are sent periodically, and detected failures trigger a separate mechanism to localize the fault. ATPG can detect both functional (e.g., incorrect firewall rule) and performance problems (e.g., congested queue). ATPG complements but goes beyond earlier work in static checking (which cannot detect liveness or performance faults) or fault localization (which only localize faults given liveness results). We describe our prototype ATPG implementation and results on two real-world data sets: Stanford University's backbone network and Internet2. We find that a small number of test packets suffices to test all rules in these networks: For example 4000 packets can cover all rules in Stanford backbone network while 54 is enough to cover all links. Sending 4000 test packets 10 times per second consumes less than 1 of link capacity. ATPG code and the data sets are publicly available1[1].
Zeng al first posited the notion of SDN controllers instructing switches to send test packets in the context of their Automated Test Packet Generation system in @cite_18 . We extend this idea to the variety of active measurements in use today, and implement such a system in real SDN hardware and software.