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Abstract for PAM2001


Hi all,

Sorry for the late notice, but I think there should be a RIPE NCC
contribution to PAM2001, so here's an abstract.  Comments before 17.00
Amsterdam time please.

Henk


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PROVIDING ACTIVE MEASUREMENTS AS A REGULAR SERVICE FOR ISP'S.

Authors:       Fotis Georgatos, Florian Gruber, Daniel Karrenberg, Mark
               Santcroos, Henk Uijterwaal and Rene Wilhelm.

Organization:  RIPE NCC, Amsterdam, NL.

Email contact: henk@ripe.net

The RIPE NCC has been active in the field of active measurements for
approximately the last 3.5 years with the "Test Traffic Project", later
renamed to "Test Traffic Measurements" [1].

During this period, a measurement device, a so-called "test-box",
implementing the IETF RFC's 2679 and 2680 [2] on delay- and loss
measurements has been developed.  The test-boxes consist of a PC, a GPS
clock, a kernel tuned for precision time-keeping as well as supporting
software. Over the last years, it has been shown that the RIPE NCC
implementation of these RFC's can reliably measure the quantities
specified in the RFC's. In the first half of the paper, we will present
more details about the RIPE NCC "test-box".

During the development period of the Test Traffic Project, the RIPE NCC
installed a limited number of ``test-boxes'' in collaboration with
volunteers at various ISP's.  These volunteers are usually interested in
performance measurements and were prepared to spend considerable amounts
of effort in order to install test-boxes.

However, the RIPE NCC is a service organization for ISP's in Europe and
surrounding areas.  Any research project therefor eventually will have to
be made available to the entire Internet community.  The RIPE NCC Test
Traffic Project has recently made this transition and is now offering
active measurements as a service to all interested ISP's.

Contrary to the pilot users, this second generation of users is only
interested in the results of the measurements. They also prefer a "plug
and play" solution for the measurement device. In the second half of this
paper, we discuss several aspects related to providing active
measurements to third parties, such as:

* Deployment and maintenance of a large number of GPS clocks.

* Data collection, bulk processing and presentation of the results
  in a way understandable to the general public.

* Notification about unusual network conditions.  Most ISP's lack the time
  to routinely scan a large number of plots but do like to be notified
  about unusual conditions before their customers complain.

* Providing trend analysis on the data, in order to be able to estimate
  future demands for bandwidth by the ISP's customers

The paper focusses on practical aspects of providing active measurements
on a large scale.  However, marketing and commercial aspects are clearly
beyond the scope of this paper.


References:
-----------

[1] Henk Uijterwaal, Olaf Kolkman: "Internet Delay Measurements
    using Test Traffic - Design Note", RIPE NCC, Document RIPE-158, May 1997

[2] "A One-way Delay Metric for IPPM" G. Almes, S. Kalidindi, M.
     Zekauskas RFC2679, September 1999.
    "A One-way Packet Loss Metric for IPPM" G. Almes, S. Kalidindi, M.
     Zekauskas RFC2680, September 1999.








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Henk Uijterwaal                    Email: henk.uijterwaal@ripe.net
RIPE Network Coordination Centre     WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk
Singel 258                         Phone: +31.20.535-4414,  Fax -4445
1016 AB Amsterdam                   Home: +31.20.4195305
The Netherlands                   Mobile: +31.6.55861746  
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A man can take a train and never reach his destination.
                                               (Kerouac, well before RFC2780).






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