Fast approximation of self-similar network traffic

Recent network traffic studies argue that network arrival processes are much more faithfully modeled using statistically self-similar processes instead of traditional Poisson processes [LTWW94a, PF94]. One difficulty in dealing with self-similar models is how to efficiently synthesize traces (sample paths) corresponding to self-similar traffic. We present a fast Fourier transform method for synthesizing approximate self-similar sample paths and assess its performance and validity. We find that the method is as fast or faster than existing methods and appears to generate a closer approximation to true self-similar sample paths than the other known fast method (Random Midpoint Displacement). We then discuss issues in using such synthesized sample paths for simulating network traffic, and how an approximation used by our method can dramatically speed up evaluation of Whittle`s estimator for H, the Hurst parameter giving the strength of long-range dependence present in a self-similar time series