Graph-Based P2P Traffic Classification at the Internet Backbone

Abstract

Monitoring network traffic and classifying applications are essential functions for network administrators. In this paper, we consider the use of Traffic Dispersion Graphs (TDGs) to classify network traffic. Given a set of flows, a TDG is a graph with an edge between any two IP addresses that communicate; thus TDGs capture network-wide interactions. Using TDGs, we develop an application classification framework dubbed Graption (Graph-based classification). Our framework provides a systematic way to harness the power of network-wide behavior, flow-level characteristics, and data mining techniques. As a proof of concept, we instantiate our framework to detect P2P applications, and show that it can identify P2P traffic with recall and precision greater than 90% in backbone traces, which are particularly challenging for other methods.