Events Calendar

PhD Thesis Defense - Guillermo Baltra

PhD Thesis Defense - Guillermo Baltra

Committee Members: John Heidemann (Chair), Ramesh Govindan, Antonio Ortega


Title: Improving network reliability using a formal definition of the Internet core

Abstract: After 50 years, the Internet is still defined as a collection of interconnected networks. Yet seamless, universal connectivity is challenged in several ways. Political pressure threatens fragmentation due to de peering, architectural changes such as carrier grade NAT, the cloud makes connectivity indirect, firewalls impede connectivity, and operational problems and commercial disputes all challenge the idea of a single set of interconnected networks. We propose that a new, conceptual definition of the Internet core helps disambiguate questions in analysis of network reliability and address space usage.
We prove this statement through three studies. First, we improve coverage of outage detection by dealing with sparse sections of the Internet, increasing from a nominal 67 percent responsive 24 blocks coverage to 96 percent of the responsive Internet. Second, we provide a new definition of the Internet core, and use it to resolve partial reachability ambiguities. We show that the Internet today has peninsulas of persistent, partial connectivity, and that some outages cause islands where the Internet at the site is up, but partitioned from the main Internet. Finally, we use our definition to identify ISP trends, with applications to policy and improving outage detection accuracy. We show how these studies together thoroughly prove our thesis statement. We provide a new conceptual definition of the Internet core in our second study about partial reachability. We use our definition in our first and second studies to disambiguate questions about network reliability and in our third study, to ISP address space usage dynamics.

Location: Charles Lee Powell Hall (PHE) - 325

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Melissa Ochoa

Event Link: https://usc.zoom.us/j/93940091161?pwd=S0tzNms2OW5EWTgzWFhtd3lSUlNudz09