Estimation of the packet processing time of hosts in the presence of interrupt coalescence

Abstract

We propose a method to measure the packet processing time (PPT) of remote hosts that use network interface cards (NICs) with interrupt coalescence (IC). The model is based on sending a pair of probe packets. The proposed method first detects whether the host under test uses IC and then measures PPT. The presented experimental evaluation under 100- and 1000-Mb/s transmission speeds shows that the proposed method consistently measures PPT with high efficacy.