Understanding cloud storage services usage: a practical case study

Abstract

Cloud Storage services present several characteristics that turn current classification methods insufficient or too complex to apply, namely the use of dynamic communication ports and security protocols. This paper identifies appropriate techniques for cloud traffic classification and defines a model for processing cloud services traces, taking the University of Minho (UMinho) network as a practical case study. The obtained results, using a classification approach based on Tstat tool, provide global statistics regarding the most used Cloud Storage services at UMinho and characterize the corresponding traffic.