A benchmarking of the efficiency of supervised ML algorithms in the NFV traffic classification

Abstract

The implementation of NFV allows improving the flexibility, efficiency, and manageability of networks by leveraging virtualization and cloud computing technologies to deploy computer networks. The implementation of autonomic management and supervised algorithms from Machine Learning [ML] become a key strategy to manage this hidden traffic. In this work, we focus on analyzing the traffic features of NFV-based networks while performing a benchmarking of the behavior of supervised ML algorithms, namely J48, Naïve Bayes, and Bayes Net, in the IP traffic classification regarding their efficiency; considering that such an efficiency is related to the trade-off between time-response and precision. We used two test scenarios (an NFV-based SDN and an NFV-based LTE EPC). The benchmarking results reveal that the Naïve Bayes and Bayes Net algorithms achieve the best performance in traffic classification. In particular, their performance corroborates a good trade-off between precision and time-response, with precision values higher than 80 % and 96 %, respectively, in times less than 1,5 sec.