On the Properties of TCP Flow Arrival Process

We study the TCP flow arrival process, starting from the aggregated measurement at the TCP flow level taken from our campus network. In particular, we analyze the statistical properties of the TCP flow arrival process. We define the different traffic aggregates by splitting the original trace, such that i) each of them is constituted by all the TCP flows belonging to the same traffic relation, i.e., with the same source/destination IP addresses and ii) each traffic aggregate has, bytewise, the same amount of traffic. To induce a divisions of TCP-elephants and TCP-mice into different traffic aggregates, the used algorithm packs the largest traffic relations in the first traffic aggregates, so that subsequently generated aggregates are constituted by an increasing number of smaller traffic relations. The long range dependency (LRD) characteristics are presented, showing the possible causes of the LRD of TCP flow arrival process in i) the heavy tailed distribution of the number of flows in a traffic aggregate, and ii) the presence of TCP-elephants within them