text: We consider the problem of inferring the topology of a network with M sources and N receivers (an M-by- N network), by sending probes between the sources and receivers. Prior work has shown that this problem can be decomposed into two parts: first, infer smaller subnetwork components (1-by- N's or 2-by-2's) and then merge them to identify the M-by- N topology. We focus on the second part, which had previously received less attention in the literature. We assume that a 1-by- N topology is given and that all 2-by-2 components can be queried and learned using end-to-end probes. The problem is which 2-by-2's to query and how to merge them with the given 1-by- N, so as to exactly identify the 2-by- N topology, and optimize a number of performance metrics, including the number of queries (which directly translates into measurement bandwidth), time complexity, and memory usage. We provide a lower bound, [N 2], on the number of 2-by-2's required by any active learning algorithm and propose two greedy algorithms. The first algorithm follows the framework of multiple hypothesis testing, in particular Generalized Binary Search (GBS). The second algorithm is called the Receiver Elimination Algorithm (REA) and follows a bottom-up approach. It requires exactly N-1 steps, which is much less than all (2N) possible 2-by-2's. Simulation results demonstrate that both algorithms correctly identify the 2-by- N topology and are near-optimal, but REA is more efficient in practice.
  @cite_38: Information about the topology and link-level characteristics of a network is critical for many applications including network diagnostics and management. However, this information is not always directly accessible; subnetworks may not cooperate in releasing information and widespread local measurement can be prohibitively expensive. Network tomographic techniques obviate the need for network cooperation, but the majority assume probing from a single source, which imposes scalability limitations because sampling traffic is concentrated on network links close to the source. We describe a multiple source, end-to-end sampling architecture that uses coordinated transmission of carefully engineered multipacket probes to jointly infer logical topology and estimate link-level performance characteristics. We commence by demonstrating that the general multiple source, multiple destination tomography problem can be formally reduced to the two source, two destination case, allowing the immediate generalization of any sampling techniques developed for the simpler, smaller scenario. We then describe a method for testing whether links are shared in the topologies perceived by individual sources, and describe how to fuse the measurements in the shared case to generate more accurate estimates of the link-level performance statistics
  @cite_10: In this paper, we combine network coding and tomographic techniques for topology inference. Our goal is to infer the topology of a network by sending probes between a given set of multiple sources and multiple receivers and by having intermediate nodes perform network coding operations. We combine and extend two ideas that have been developed independently. On one hand, network coding introduces topology-dependent correlation, which can then be exploited at the receivers to infer the topology [1]. On the other hand, it has been shown that a traditional (i.e., without network coding) multiple source, multiple receiver tomography problem can be decomposed into multiple two source, two receiver subproblems [2]. Our first contribution is to show that, when intermediate nodes perform network coding, topological information contained in network coded packets allows to accurately distinguish among all different 2-by-2 subnetwork components, which was not possible with traditional tomographic techniques. Our second contribution is to use this knowledge to merge the subnetworks and accurately reconstruct the general topology. Our approach is applicable to any general Internet-like topology, and is robust to the presence of delay variability and packet loss.
  @cite_12: 
summary: In our prior work @cite_10 @cite_12 , we revisited the problem of topology inference using end-to-end probes in networks where intermediate nodes are equipped with multicast and network coding capabilities. We built on @cite_38 and extended it, using network coding at intermediate nodes to deterministically distinguish among all possible quartet topologies, which was not possible before. While in @cite_10 @cite_12 , we focused on inferring the quartets fast and accurately, here we assume that any quartet can be queried and learned, and focus on efficiently selecting and merging the quartets to infer the larger topology. To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first to look at this aspect of the problem.