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PingER: Methodology, Uses & Results

Prepared by Les Cottrell, SLAC, for the Extending the Reach of Advanced Networking: Special International Workshop

Arlington, VA., April 22, 2004www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/scs/net/talk03/i2-method-apr04.ppt

Partially funded by DOE/MICS Field Work Proposal on Internet End-to-end Performance Monitoring (IEPM), also

supported by IUPAP

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Outline• What is PingER

• World Internet performance trends

• Regions and Digital Divide

• Examples of use

• Challenges

• Summary of state of world Internet performance

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Methodology

• Use ubiquitous ping

• Each 30 minutes from monitoring site to target : – 1 ping to prime caches– by default send11x100Byte pkts followed by

10x1000Byte pkts• Low network impact good for developing world

• Record loss & RTT, (+ reorders, duplicates)

• Derive throughput, jitter, unreachability …

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Architecture

• Hierarchical vs. full mesh

WWWWWW

ArchiveArchive

MonitoringMonitoringMonitoringMonitoring MonitoringMonitoring

RemoteRemote

RemoteRemoteRemoteRemote

RemoteRemote

FNAL

Reports & Data

CacheMonitoringMonitoring

SLAC Ping

HTTP

ArchiveArchive

1 monitor hostremote host pair

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PingER Benefits

• Provides quantitative historical (> 9yrs) and near real-time information– Aggregate by regions, affiliations etc.– How bad is performance to various

regions, rank countries?– Trends: who is catching up, falling behind,

is progress being made?– Compare vs. economic, development

indicators etc.• Use for trouble shooting setting

expectations, identify needed upgrades, choosing a provider, presenting to policy makers, funding bodies

Monitoring site vs. Remote sites screen shot

• Aimed at: end-user (net-admin & sophisticated user), planners • Measures analyzes & reports round-trip times, losses, availability,

throughput ...– Uses ubiquitous ping, no special host, or software to install/configure at remote

sites, no passwords or credentials needed– Low impact on network << 100bits/s, important for many DD sites– Covers 100+ countries (> 90% of Internet connected population)

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Regions Monitored

• Recent added NIIT PK as monitoring site• White = no host monitored in country• Colors indicate regions• Also have affinity groups (VOs), e.g. AMPATH, Silk

Road, CMS, XIWT and can select multiple groups

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World Trends• Increase in sites with Good (<1%) loss

• 25% increase in sites monitored– Big focus on Africa 4=>19 countries– Silk Road

Loss quality ratings seen from SLAC

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Dreadful >12%V. poor >=5% & <12%Poor >=2.5% & < 5%Acceptable >=1% & < 2.5%Good <1%

Ping blocking

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WSISICTP

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TrendsS.E. Europe, Russia: catching upLatin Am., Mid East, China: keeping upIndia, Africa: falling behind Derived throughput~MSS/(RTT*sqrt(loss))

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Current State – Aug ‘03 thruput ~ MSS / (RTT * sqrt(loss))

• 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

Bad < 200kbits/s < DSL Poor > 200, < 500kbits/s

Acceptable > 500kbits/s, < 1000kbits/sGood > 1000kbits/s

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Examples of Use• Need for constant upgrades• Upgrades• Filtering• Pakistan

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Usage Examples

• Selecting ISPs for DSL/Cable services for home users– Monitor accessibility of routers etc. from site– Long term and changes

• Trouble shooting– Identifying problem reported is probably network related– Identify when it started and if still happening or fixed– Look for patterns:

• Step functions• Periodic behavior, e.g. due to congestion• Multiple sites with simultaneous problems, e.g. common problem link/router …

– Provide quantitative information to ISPs

Identify need to upgrade and effects

• BW increase by factor 300• Multiple sites track• Xmas & summer holiday

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Russia

• E.g. Upgrade to KEK-BINP link from 128kbps to 512kbps, May ’02: improved from few % loss to ~0.1% loss

• Russian losses improved by factor 5 in last 2 years, due to multiple upgrades

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Usage Examples

Median Packet Loss Seen From nbi.dk

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Ten-155 became Ten-155 became operational on operational on December 11.December 11.

Smurf Filtersmurf Filtersinstalled oninstalled onNORDUnet’sNORDUnet’sUS connection.US connection.

To North America

To Western Europe

Packet Loss between DESY and FNAL in February and March 2000.

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DFN closes Perryman POP and looses direct peering with ESnet

Peering re-established via Dante at 60 Hudson

February March

Peering problems, took long time identify/fix

Upgrades & ping filtering

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Pakistan Conclusions• Big performance differences to sites, depend on ISP

(at least 3 ISPs seen for Pakistan A&R sites)• To NIIT:

– Get about 300Kbps, possibly 380Kbps at best – Verified bottleneck appeared to be in Pakistan – Requested upgrade to 1Mbps, and verified got it– There is often congestion (packet loss & extended RTTs)

during busy periods each weekday – Video will probably be sensitive to packet loss, so it may

depend on the time of day– H.323 (typically needs 384Kbps + 64Kbps), would appear to

be marginal at best at any time.

• No peering Pakistan between NIIT and NSC

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Challenges• Effort:

– Negligible for remote hosts– Monitoring host: < 1 day to install and configure, occasional updates to remote

host tables and problem response – Archive host: 20% FTE, code stable, could do with upgrade, contact monitoring

sites whose data is inaccessible– Analysis: your decision, usually for long term details download & use Excel– Trouble-shooting:

• usually re-active, user reports, then look at PingER data• have played with automating alerts, data will/is available via web services

• Ping blocking– Complete block easy to ID, then contact site to try and by-pass, can be

frustrating for 3rd world– Partial blocks trickier, compare with synack

• Funding– “Unfortunately, network management research has historically been very under-

funded, because it is difficult to get funding bodies to recognize this as legitimate networking research.” Sally Floyd, IAB Concerns & Recommendations Regarding Internet Research & Evolution.

– http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-iab-research-funding-00.txt

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Summary

• Performance from U.S. & Europe is improving all over

• Performance to developed countries are orders of magnitude better than to developing countries

• Poorer regions 5-10 years behind• Poorest regions Africa, Caucasus, Central & S.

Asia• Some regions are:

– catching up (SE Europe, Russia), – keeping up (Latin America, Mid East, China), – falling further behind (e.g. India, Africa)

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More Information• PingER:

– www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/

• MonaLisa– monalisa.cacr.caltech.edu/

• GGF/NMWG– www-didc.lbl.gov/NMWG/

• ICFA/SCIC Network Monitoring report, Jan03– www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/icfa/icfa-net-paper-dec02

• Monitoring the Digital Divide, CHEP03 paper– arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0305/0305016.pdf

• Human Development Index– www.undp.org/hdr2003/pdf/hdr03_backmatter_2.pdf

• Network Readiness Index– www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Initiatives+subhome

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Extra Slides

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VisualizationKeep it simple, enable user to do their

own by making data available • Tables

– Time series (www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-

wrap/pingtable.pl): • select metric (loss, RTT etc.), time ticks,

packet size, aggregations from/to, etc.

• Color code numbers, provide sort, drill down to graphs, download data (TSV), statistical summaries

– Monitoring site vs. Remote sites (www-

iepm.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/table.pl):• Select metric, region aggregations

• Drill down to time series, download data

• Graphs– Select source(s)/destination(s), metric,

time window, SQL selects, graph type

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Publish information

#!/usr/bin/perl use SOAP::Lite; my $characteristic = SOAP::Lite -> service(‘http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/tools/soap/wsdl/profile_06.wsdl') -> pathDelayOneWay("tt81.ripe.net:tt28.ripe.net”); print $characteristic->{NetworkTestTool}->{toolName},"\n"; print $characteristic->{NetworkPathDelayStatistics}->{value},"\n";

• www.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/pingtable.pl => tabular reports, also download data

• Data accessible from MonaLisa• Implementing web services

access prototype– Includes: PingER, IEPM-BE, RIPE-tt,

I2 E2Epi OWAMP– Use GGF/NMWG schema/profile,

e.g.• path.delay.roundTrip

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Loss to world from US

2001 Dec-2003

In 2001 <20% of In 2001 <20% of the world’s the world’s population had population had Good or Good or Acceptable Loss Acceptable Loss performanceperformance

Loss RateLoss Rate< 0.1 to 1 %< 0.1 to 1 % 1 to 2.5 %1 to 2.5 % 2.5 to 5 %2.5 to 5 % 5 to 12 %5 to 12 % > 12 %> 12 %

BUT by December 2003BUT by December 2003It had improved to 77%It had improved to 77%

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Rate LimitingRTT Loss

2 hosts at same site see sudden step-like increase in loss from < 1% to 20-30% at similar time

boromir.nask.waw.pl

gollum.nask.pl

www.pol34.pl Another host in Poland sees no problems, i.e. helps to have another nearby host

RT

T Los

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Similar effects for Greek (uoa.gr), Bulgarian (acad.bg), Kazakhstan (president.kz), Moldovan (asm.md) and Turkish (metud.edu.tr) sites

If no step function or nearby host may not notice, so also compare synack vs ping

Can ping routers along path to see where onset occurs

At any given time, about 5% of monitored hosts are doing this, most in developing countries. Recently (August 2003) seen an increase in ping rate limiting

RTT Loss

boromir.nask.waw.pl

gollum.nask.pl

www.pol34.pl

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Rate Limiting Moldova

cni.md

lises.asm.md

RTT Loss

Moldova Bulgaria

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VariabilityRegion Countries #

AfricaGhana, Namibia, Nigeria, Namibia, S. Africa, Uganda 6

C AsiaKazakhstan, Kyrghzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan 9

S AsiaBangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, (Vietnam) 16

M East Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey 10

Caucasus Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia 5

S AmericaArgentina, Brazil, Columbia, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela 13

China China including Hong Kong 5

Russia Russia 5

C America Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico 4

SE Europe(Albania), Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia/Montenegro, Slovenia 13

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Africa• Hosts in: Ife-Ife/Nigeria, Accra/Ghana,

Kampala/Uganda, Windhoek/Namibia, UCT/ZA, Johannesburg/ZA, Musselbay/ZA

• Carriers:– GH uses UUNET/Satworks, NA uses

UUNET/xantic, NG uses TELIANET/NewSkies, UG uses Level(3)/globalconnex

– ZA varies from site to site: UUNET/ALTERNET, C&W Telecom S. Africa, CAIS telcom S. Africa

• UG, NA, NG, GH use satellites (> 600ms)• ZA uses landlines

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Africa RTT• Monitored from N.

America & Europe– Depends on remote site

(not monitoring site)– Satellite for all except S.

Africa– Ghana problems

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West Africa• Ghana very poor performance

– Sudden increase on August 18th– Not rate limiting according to synack– Sometimes get down to a few %– Route ESnet-UUNET/ALTER.NET– Losses appear on

last 2 hops in Ghana

• Nigeria better– Route via

TELIANET/newskies

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Africa Derived Throughput

• S. Africa (UCT) best, followed by Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana

• Throughput to Nigeria site == home DSL/cable• Throughput to Ghana site === modem dialup

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Human Development Index (HDI ) RankSource: UN

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Source: From slide prepared by Harvey Newman, presented by David Source: From slide prepared by Harvey Newman, presented by David Williams ICFA/SCIC talk on Serenate report. Data from the TERENA Williams ICFA/SCIC talk on Serenate report. Data from the TERENA CompendiumCompendium

Lagging

Derived throughput~MSS/(RTT*sqrt(loss))

Europe

Netherlands

Turkey

Belgium

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Loss Comparisons with Development (UNDP)

Even weaker with education & literacy

Weak correlation with Human Development or GDP

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Digital Access Index• DAI (from ITU 2002)

includes:– Availability of

infrastructure– Affordability of access– Education level– Quality of ICT services– Internet usage

Top DAI countries Good positive correlation between

throughput and DAICare needed with shorter RTTs

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Network Readiness

• NRI from Center for International Development, Harvard U. http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cr/pdf/gitrr2002_ch02.pdf

• Using derived throughput ~ MSS / (RTT * sqrt(loss))– Fit to exponential is better

Internet for all focusA

&R

focus

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

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Technology Achievement Index (TAI)

• TAI captures how well a country is creating and diffusing technology and building a human skills base.

• TAI from UNDP hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2001/en/pdf/techindex.pdf TAI top 12Finland 0.744US 0.733Sweden 0.703Japan 0.698Korea Rep. of 0.666Netherlands 0.630UK 0.606Canada 0.589Australia 0.587Singapore 0.585Germany 0.583Norway 0.579

US & Canada off-scale

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Futures• Get >= 2 hosts/country• Better/quicker detection of rate limiting• Have 4 students at GATech rewriting parts of

PingER to improve (reduce effort required for) day to day management and improve portability

• Submitting a proposal to IDRC for monitoring Africa and adding a measurement host in Nigeria

• Need better automated tools to produce graphs like in this presentation.

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• 35+ monitoring sites in 13 countries– Plan to add ICTP Trieste if funded – Other projects used toolkit, e.g. XIWT, PPCNG/EDG, IAEA …

• SLAC with help from FNAL• Digital Divide collaboration (MOU) with ICTP, Trieste

– eJDS– We are requesting an IDRC grant for eJDS and PingER

• Need funding for coming year (DoE funding ended):– Tasks:

• (0.5 FTE) ongoing maintain data collection, explain needs, reopen connections, open firewall blocks, find replacement hosts, make limited special analyses, prepare & make presentations, respond to questions

• (+ 0.5 FTE) extend the code for new environment (more countries, more data collections), fix known non-critical bugs, improve visualization, automate some of reports generated by hand today, find new country site contacts, add route histories and visualization, automate alarms, detect rate limiting earlier, update web site for better navigation, add more DD monitoring sites/countries, improve code portability, understand regions better

• ICFA: show importance to policy makers, funding agencies, identify sympathetic contacts at agencies, get support

Collaborations & Funding