This page describes the traffic plots provided for each dataset. For illustrative purposes, we include the plots of the D04 [Backbone 1, 2002-08-14], bytes dataset on this page.

Each plot contains a curve for all four possible combinations of link direction and source/destination endpoint (except for D08 [Backbone 1, 2003-05-07], which has only one direction). Although there are numerous plots, there are only two basic types. The first type shows a CDF of objects according to object size. Objects are IP addresses, prefixes, atoms, and ASes, and the size measure is the volume of traffic contributed by an object. For example, the following plot shows that greater than 85% of IP addresses each contribute less than 1e+05 bytes of traffic, regardless of link direction or endpoint.

The second plot type shows a CCDF of traffic volume according to object size. For example, the following plot shows that greater than 90% of the total traffic comes from objects that each contribute at least 1e+05 bytes of traffic, regardless of link direction or endpoint.

By overlaying the object CDF and the traffic volume CCDF plots, it is possible to visually determine the crossover point. The plot below demonstrates this for destination prefixes in the northbound direction. It is also easy to see from this plot that the crossover point, at 1.6e+08 bytes, lies between the object CDF median, at around 1e+06 bytes, and the traffic volume CCDF median, at around 2e+09 bytes.