The PingER Project: Measuring the Digital Divide

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The PingER Project Measuring the Digital Divide
Presented by Les Cottrell, SLAC At the SIS Show
Palexpo/Geneva December 2003
PingER
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History of the PingER Project

• Early 1990s SLAC begins pinging nodes around
  the world to evaluate the quality of Internet
  connectivity between SLAC and other HEP
  Institutions.
• Around 1996 The PingER project was funded making
  it the first Internet end-to-end monitoring tool
  available to the HEP community.
• Today Believed to be the most extensive Internet
  end-to-end performance monitoring tool in the
  world

PingER
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PingER Today

• Today, the PingER Project includes 35
  Monitoring-hosts in 12 countries. They are
  monitoring Remote-hosts in 80 countries.

• THESE COUNTRIES COVER 75 OF THE WORLD POPULATION
  AND 99 OF THE INTERNET CONNECTED POPULATION!!!

PingER
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Methodology
gtping remhost
Internet
Remote Host (typically a server)
Monitoring host
11 ping request packets each 30 mins
Ping response packets
Measure Round Trip Time Loss
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PingER Architecture
There are three types of hosts

• Remote-hosts
• hosts being monitored

PingER
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PingER Architecture
There are three types of hosts

• Remote-hosts
• hosts being monitored

• Monitoring-hosts
• make ping measurements to remote hosts

PingER
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PingER Architecture
There are three types of hosts

• Remote-hosts
• hosts being monitored

• Monitoring-hosts
• Make ping measurements to remote hosts

• Archive/Analysis-
• hosts gather data from Monitoring-sites,
  analyze make reports

PingER
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Worldwide performance

• Performance is improving
• Developed world improving factor of 10 in 4-5
  years
• S.E. Europe, Russia, catching up
• India Africa worse off falling behind
• Developing world 3-10 years behind

• Many institutes in developing world have less
  performance than a household in N. America or
  Europe

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Current State Aug 03 (throughput Mbps)
Monitoring Country
Remote regions

• Within region performance better
• E.g. CaEDUGOV-NA, Hu-SE Eu, Eu-Eu, Jp-E Asia,
  Au-Au, Ru-RuBaltics
• Africa, Caucasus, Central S. Asia all bad

Acceptable gt 500kbits/s, lt 1000kbits/s
Bad lt 200kbits/s lt DSL Poor gt 200 lt 500kbits/s
Good gt 1000kbits/s
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Loss Comparisons with Development (UNDP)
Positive correlation with Human Development or GDP
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Network Readiness Index vs Throughput

• NRI from Center for International Development,
  Harvard U. http//www.cid.harvard.edu/cr/pdf/gitrr
  2002_ch02.pdf

NRI Top 14 Finland 5.92 US 5.79 Singapore
5.74 Sweden 5.58 Iceland 5.51 Canada
5.44 UK 5.35 Denmark 5.33 Taiwan 5.31 Germany
5.29 Netherlands 5.28 Israel
5.22 Switzerland 5.18 Korea 5.10
AR focus
Internet for all focus

• NRI correlates reasonably well with Network
  Readiness

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Typical uses

• Troubleshooting
• Discerning if a reported problem is network
  related
• Identify the time a problem started
• Provide quantitative analysis for Network
  specialists
• Identifying step functions, periodic network
  behavior, and recognize problems affecting
  multiple sites.
• Setting expectations
• Identifying need to upgrade
• Providing quantitative information to Policy
  makers Funding agencies
• Seeing the effects of upgrades

PingER
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In Summary

• PingER provides ongoing support for monitoring
  and maintaining the quality of Internet
  connectivity for the world wide scientific
  community.
• Information is available publicly on the web
• www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/pingtable.pl
  
• PingER also quantifies the extent of the Digital
  Divide and provides information to policy makers
  and funding agencies.

PingER
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For More Information

• We need contacts in developing countries
• (send email to iepm-l_at_slac.stanford.edu)
• PingER
• www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/
• eJDS
• www.ejds.org/
• ICFA/SCIC Network Monitoring report, Jan03
• www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/icfa/icfa-net-paper-dec
  02
• Monitoring the Digital Divide, CHEP03 paper
• http//arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0305/0305016.p
  df
• The PingER Project Active Internet Performance
  Monitoring for the HENP Community, IEEE
  Communications Magazine on Network Traffic
  Measurements and Experiments.

PingER