Section: New Results

Classification of Load Balancing in the Internet

Participants: Renata Teixeira (MiMove), Rafael Almeida, Ítalo Cunha (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), Darryl Veitch (University of Technology Sydney), Christophe Diot (Google)

Recent advances in programmable data planes, software-defined networking, and the adoption of IPv6, support novel, more complex load balancing strategies. We introduce the Multipath Classification Algorithm (MCA), a probing algorithm that extends traceroute to identify and classify load balancing in Internet routes. MCA extends existing formalism and techniques to consider that load balancers may use arbitrary combinations of bits in the packet header for load balancing. We propose optimizations to reduce probing cost that are applicable to MCA and existing load balancing measurement techniques. Through large-scale measurement campaigns, we characterize and study the evolution of load balancing on the IPv4 and IPv6 Internet with multiple transport protocols. Our results that will appear in the IEEE INFOCOM 2020 conference show that load balancing is more prevalent and that load balancing strategies are more mature than previous characterizations have found.