Re: Strange Attractors in Network Flows

[Tim Bass <[e-mail]>]

Continuing:

> 
> So what you're saying is "interesting, but not good enough?"
> 

Hmmmm.  I'm not sure I meant that :-)  But it did seem like
a traditional linear dynamics (simplified) approach to
a nonlinear problem... which was precisely what seems to be
'off target' with attempts to model large internetworks. Grok.

> Well, a chaotic system will only look chaotic if you look at the
> right phase space.  Are you sure that it's packet arrival/departure

Exactly, and finding the right model is, of course the key...

> that is interesting, or flow rates?  Personally, I think a better
> (and more productive) line of attack would be looking at routing
> flaps (which often exhibit "ringing" as one after another router
> falls over while attempting to swallow a large routing update),
> or maybe some other measure.  Another thing to look at might be
> access rates to popular mirror-FTP sites (especially those that
> have made attempts to setup a frobozz.org DNS that tries to round-robin
> effectively).  What damping/oscillation rate do we end up seeing
> due to the "this FTP server is full" scenario?

Agreed. What are the sets of possible phase-spaces that exist in 
IP internetworks? That seems to be the question to ponder.

I'll be thinking of a few over then next few days.  Any ideas
in this area?

Regards,

Tim