An Observation-Based Middlebox Policy Taxonomy

Recent years have seen the rise of middleboxes, such as NATs, firewalls, or TCP accelerators. Those middleboxes play an important role in today's Internet, including enterprise networks and cellular networks. However, despite their undisputable success in modern network architecture, their actual impact on packets, traffic, and network performance is not that much understood. In this paper, we propose a path impairment oriented middlebox classification that aims at categorizing the initial purpose of a middlebox policy as well as its potential complications.