Abstract
Traffic classification groups similar or related traffic data, which is one main stream technique of data fusion in the field of network management and security. With the rapid growth of network users and the emergence of new networking services, network traffic classification has attracted increasing attention. Many new traffic classification techniques have been developed and widely applied. However, the existing literature lacks a thorough survey to summarize, compare and analyze the recent advances of network traffic classification in order to deliver a holistic perspective. This paper carefully reviews existing network traffic classification methods from a new and comprehensive perspective by classifying them into five categories based on representative classification features, i.e., statistics-based classification, correlation-based classification, behavior-based classification, payload-based classification, and port-based classification. A series of criteria are proposed for the purpose of evaluating the performance of existing traffic classification methods. For each specified category, we analyze and discuss the details, advantages and disadvantages of its existing methods, and also present the traffic features commonly used. Summaries of investigation are offered for providing a holistic and specialized view on the state-of-art. For convenience, we also cover a discussion on the mostly used datasets and the traffic features adopted for traffic classification in the review. At the end, we identify a list of open issues and future directions in this research field.
•Comprehensive evaluation criteria to assess classification methods.•A thorough review on traffic classification methods.•A discussion on advantages and disadvantages of classification methods.•An analysis on classification granularity by dividing it into four levels.•Exploration of open issues and future research directions.