Analysis of Correlations Among Size, Rate, and Duration in Internet Flows

In this paper we examine rigorously the evidence for correlations among data size, transfer rate, and duration in Internet flows. We emphasize various statistical approaches for studying correlations, including computing Pearson's correlation coefficient and using the extremal dependence analysis (EDA) method. We apply these methods to three large data sets of packet traces from a diverse set of networks. Our major results show that correlation between size and duration is much weaker than one might expect. We also find that correlation between size and rate is generally weak and can be strongly affected by applying thresholds to size or duration.