Fast Dynamics in Internet Topology: Observations and First Explanations

Abstract

By focusing on what can be observed by running traceroute-like measurements at a high frequency from a single monitor to a fixed destination set, we show that the observed view of the topology is constantly evolving at a pace much higher than expected. Repeated measurements discover new IP addresses at a constant rate, for long periods of times (up to several months). In order to provide explanations, we study this phenomenon both at the IP, and at the Autonomous System levels. We show that this renewal of IP addresses is partially caused by a BGP routing dynamics, altering paths between existing ASes. Furthermore, we conjecture that an intra AS routing dynamics is another cause of this phenomenon.