Analysis of the Internet’s structural evolution

In this paper we study the structural evolution of the AS topology as inferred from two different datasets over a peri od of seven years. We use a variety of topological metrics to analy ze the structural differences revealed in the AS topologies in ferred from the two different datasets. In particular, to focus on the evolution of the relationship between the core and the perip hery, we make use of the weighted spectral distribution. We find that the traceroute dataset has increasing difficulty in sampling the periphery of the AS topology, largely due to limitations inherent to active probing. Such a dataset has t oo limited a view to properly observe topological changes at th e AS-level compared to a dataset largely based on BGP data. We also highlight limitations in current measurements that require a better sampling of particular topological properties of the Internet. Our results indicate that the Internet is changing from a core-centered, strongly customer-provider oriented, di sassortative network, to a soft-hierarchical, peering-oriented, assortative network.

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