TWAMP stands for Two-Way Active Measurement Protocol, which is a technology that measures the round-trip performance of an IP network. It uses UDP packets as probes to collect statistics about the round-trip latency, jitter, and packet loss rate. It also separates session control and traffic measurement to provide high security.
TWAMP works by using two related protocols, running between several defined elements:
- TWAMP-Control: This protocol initiates, starts, and ends test sessions. It runs between a Control-Client element and a Server element. The Control-Client requests the Server to create a test session with certain parameters, such as packet size, rate, and duration. The Server responds with an acceptance or rejection of the request. If accepted, the Server assigns a Session-Reflector element to handle the test packets.
- TWAMP-Test: This protocol exchanges test packets between two elements. It runs between a Session-Sender element and a Session-Reflector element. The Session-Sender sends UDP packets with timestamps and sequence numbers to the Session-Reflector, which echoes them back to the Session-Sender. The Session-Sender then calculates the round-trip latency, jitter, and packet loss rate based on the timestamps and sequence numbers.
TWAMP can measure the performance of any IP network by using different devices as the TWAMP elements. A common implementation combines the roles of Control-Client and Session-Sender in one device (known as the TWAMP controller or TWAMP client) and the roles of Server and Session-Reflector in another device (known as the TWAMP responder or TWAMP server)
TWAMP can help network operators to monitor, optimize, and benchmark their network performance by collecting statistics about the round-trip latency, jitter, and packet loss rate. TWAMP can also support traffic engineering and load balancing by identifying network bottlenecks, congestion, and routing issues.
Some examples of TWAMP use-cases are:
• Network monitoring: TWAMP can help network operators to monitor the quality of service (QoS) and SLA compliance of their IP networks. TWAMP can also detect network faults and troubleshoot network problems.
• Network optimization: TWAMP can help network operators to optimize their network performance and resource utilization by identifying network bottlenecks, congestion, and routing issues. TWAMP can also support traffic engineering and load balancing.
• Network benchmarking: TWAMP can help network operators to compare and evaluate the performance of different network technologies, vendors, or service providers. TWAMP can also provide a common metric for network performance analysis and reporting.