Network traffic processing and analysis tasks are a key element for operations and management in distributed systems, which have become more challenging due to increasing traffic volumes and dynamic traffic data characteristics.  The tasks will be significantly complicated with the greater network speed and the newly introduced mobile and IoT devices within the next few years. Such changes will render the existing traffic analysis techniques to be outdated, and scalable big data analytics may be in place for data-driven and deeper data analysis. In addition to the quantitative and qualitative challenges, big data in network traffic analysis also comes from various sources such as routers, firewalls, intrusion sensors, and the newly emerging network elements speaking with different syntax and semantics, which makes organizing and incorporating the generated data difficult for comprehensive analysis.

This workshop aims at bridging the network traffic processing and the latest advances in machine learning and data science technologies. New analysis techniques for network traffic data are needed in the big data era, from the diverse angles of network performance, availability, and security. For example, real-time streaming analytics algorithms and methods need to be explored for estimating network performance and summarizing the traffic variables to capture the network activities due to the network bandwidth increase. Multivariate analysis of traffic variables may be able to provide the intuitive, comprehensive view of the traffic dynamics. New network activities logging techniques are also needed in the future with the latest development in the storage and archival technologies. Many applications in network traffic analysis may need to address the application-specific requirements and challenges. In this workshop, we intend to share visions of investigating new approaches and methods at the intersection of networking and data sciences.  

Topics of interest include in the workshop, but are not limited to:

    Network traffic summarization
    Data-driven, multivariate traffic analysis
    Streaming-based data processing and analysis
    Big data analytics for traffic analysis
    Network forensic technologies
    Capturing, filtering, representing traffic data
    Storage and archival technologies for traffic data management
    Traffic analysis applications including change detection and anomaly detection
    Algorithms, frameworks, tools, and services for traffic analytics
    Experiences, practices, and measurement studies on network traffic analysis
    Network traffic characteristics and measurement
    Visualization of network traffic and attack information
    IoT and wireless network traffic analysis