Pathload
A measurement tool for the available bandwidth of network paths

We have developed a measurement methodology that can estimate the available bandwidth of Internet paths. The methodology has been implemented in a tool called Pathload.

The basic idea in Pathload is that the one-way delays of a periodic packet stream show increasing trend when the stream rate is larger than the avail-bw. The measurement algorithm is iterative and it requires the cooperation of both the sender and the receiver. Pathload in non-intrusive, meaning that it does not cause significant increases in the network utilization, delays, or losses. The tool has been verified experimentally, by comparing its results with SNMP utilization data from the path routers.

For more information about how Pathload works, you can read the following paper:

``End-to-End Available Bandwidth: Measurement methodology, Dynamics, and Relation with TCP Throughput'', in Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM, August 2002 (also look at an extended version, to appear in the ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking, 2003).

Download source code (latest version: 1.3.2 - 05/19/2006)

Pathload Tutorial

It should be easy to build and run, but we suggest you take a look at the README file first.
Please send us feedback about the results that you get with Pathload.


Constantine Dovrolis, Manish Jain, March 2006