[e2e] number of flows per unit time in routers

[Ghanwani, Anoop]

I have a very basic question -

Is there industry consensus on what constitutes a flow?
Theoretically, it could be some arbitrary bit mask being
applied to every packet.  However, in practice people talk
about TCP flows, UDP flows, ICMP flows, etc.  Just wondering
if there is a comprehensive list of these anywhere.

Thanks,
Anoop 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: end2end-interest-bounces at postel.org 
> [mailto:end2end-interest-bounces at postel.org] On Behalf Of 
> Craig Partridge
> Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 10:41 AM
> To: Bob Braden
> Cc: end2end-interest at postel.org
> Subject: Re: [e2e] number of flows per unit time in routers
> 
> 
> Hi Bob:
> 
> Sounds as if I need to provide a bit of context.  If you are tracking
> flows (imagine a router keeping track of flows, using, say 
> something like
> NetFlow), one question is how many flows do I need to keep track of.
> Another question is how fast may I have to create new flows or expire
> old flows.  Yet another question, and the one I was aiming at, is that
> if I'm archiving flow records over time, at what rate do I have to
> archive?
> 
> Note that for all but the first question, flows per second 
> makes perfect
> sense.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Craig
> 
> In message <200510281712.KAA11769 at gra.isi.edu>, Bob Braden writes:
> 
> >
> >It seems to me that this question is ill-posed.  It seems to make
> >sense to talk about the number of flows per time T only when average
> >flow duration << T.  So, flows per hour might make since, assuming
> >few flows are longer than a few minutes, but flows per second makes
> >no sense.
> >
> >Bob Braden
>