Mark Allman: Internet measurement: what next?

Wed Jul 9 12:28:55 UTC 2003

Daniel Karrenberg wrote:

> If you tell us what limits you want removed we may work on that!
> 

Sounds like below as if you are working on it.

> We are definitely working towards making the results generally
> available; see http://www.ripe.net/ripe/docs/ripe-271.html for details
> of that proposal.  So far we have had very positive reactions on this
> although some ISPs are worried about being exposed in comparison to
> competitors who do not participate. 

Raw data is important and if publicly available, I think you will find a 
lot of people assimilating the data in ways that others haven't thought 
of, as well as contributing suggestions for tests to obtain data that 
they feel is missing for their specific purposes.

> We will also add quite detailed measurments of DNS servers for the root
> and TLDs.  Data has been taken for several months now. A beta version of 
> the resulting products will be available soon. 

I think this would be very useful, especially in conjunction with the 
current tests and the data available concerning route views.

> I have been thinking about a multi-tier measurement network, adding
> probes that do not have dedicated hardware and high precision clocks,
> but rather conisist of just a software package. These could be deloyed
> more easily.
> 

I recommend operating system independant where possible. Store with the 
data the information pertaining to the testing machine. ie. Was the 
measurement taken over a dialup (should be detectable), what OS was it, 
and what version of resolver was used for dns tests? This would show 
performance information associated with this information as well as 
allowing weights in data analysis.

Path latencies in both directions, detmining if the path was 
a/symetrical, etc would also be useful. Of course, this information will 
change over time and must be resampled with each testing interval.

Take the tests to the user, and the network's involved won't have a 
choice on the public nature of network performance, availability, and 
routing. Everyone would be affected, and it would help provide an 
overall understanding of the 'net as a whole.

For security purposes, you could allow a blind spot, so that companies 
might be interested in using the testing equipment. Such a system would 
black out the statistics and information concerning the internal network.

-Jack