A differential dynamic model of distributed Network Coordinate System

Abstract

NCS (Network Coordinate System) provides us an effective way through which we can predict a network node's distance. NCS has been applied to a huge number of Internet applications. In this paper, we build a differential dynamic model to analyze the global dynamical behavior of a famous NCS algorithm Vivaldi and study the convergence problem existing in it. As a result, our model suggest that TIVs (Triangle Inequality Violations) combing with inappropriate iterative step cause NCS to be slow to convergence and even fail to. Our model also explains how these two problems cause oscillation phenomenon from a theoretical perspective, and give some advice on how to improve NCS's performance. The experiments and simulations prove the correctness of our model.