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

History of the PingER Project Early 1990’s: 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

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!!! Spreadsheet: \\zwinsan2\c\cottrell\iepm\ejds-mapland.xls PingER

Methodology Internet Remote Host Monitoring (typically host a server) >ping remhost Internet Remote Host (typically a server) Monitoring host 11 ping request packets each 30 mins Ping response packets Measure Round Trip Time & Loss, deduce throughput

Worldwide performance Performance is improving Developed world improving factor of 10 in 4-5 years S.E. Europe, C.Asia Russia, catching up India & Africa worse off & falling behind Developing world 3-10 years behind Spreadsheet: \\zwinsan2\c\cottrell\iepm\esnet-to-all-lomgterm.xls Many institutes in developing world have less performance than a household in N. America or Europe!!

Current State – Aug ‘03 (throughput Mbps) Monitoring Country Remote regions Worksheet: \\zwinsan2\c\cottrell\iepm\table-thru-aug03.xls Within region performance better E.g. Ca|EDU|GOV-NA, Hu-SE Eu, Eu-Eu, Jp-E Asia, Au-Au, Ru-Ru|Baltics Africa, Caucasus, Central & S. Asia all bad Acceptable > 500kbits/s, < 1000kbits/s Bad < 200kbits/s < DSL Poor > 200 < 500kbits/s Good > 1000kbits/s

PingER vs. ITU Digital Access Index (DAI) Digital Access Index includes: availability of infrastructure, affordability of access, education level, quality of ICT services & Internet usage. The DAI combines eight variables, covering five areas, to provide an overall country score. The areas are availability of infrastructure, affordability of access, educational level, quality of ICT services, and Internet usage. The results of the Index point to potential stumbling blocks in ICT adoption and can help countries identify their relative strengths and weaknesses. Spreadsheet:\\zwinsan1\groups\scs\networking\netdev\ictp\dai.xls Good positive correlation between Throughput and DAI Top DAI Countries

Typical uses Troubleshooting Setting expectations 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

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 http://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