Using the Directory for Network Trac Management Optimising Ftp Trac in the Internet

Network con guration information can be very e ectively used for network tra c optimization and improving network performance. FTP tra c, one of the largest consumers of network bandwidth, is taken as a case study of how e ectively network con guration information can be used. The idea is essentially to provide a workable and scalable mechanism by which a user or an application can evaluate the network cost factor corresponding to several ftp-servers. By choosing the server with the lowest cost factor, network cost of the retrieval is optimized. Cost could pertain to response time, tari , or any other parameter. A network model based on which the comparative network costs of several servers in a network, as seen by a user or application, can actually be calculated is shown. Two implementations which realize the idea are discussed.