Learn about Internet 2New Measurement Lab Provides Open Facilities For Network Researchers to Deploy Internet Measurement Tools
Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:53:43 -0500
Internet2 Community's Network Diagnostic Tool Key Part of M-Lab Launch
Washington D.C. - January 29, 2009 - On Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at
a special conference held in Washington D.C., Google, the New America
Foundation's Open Technology Institute, and the PlanetLab Consortium,
together with researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology,
Internet2, the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Northwestern
University and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center launched
Measurement Lab (M-Lab).
M-Lab is an open platform that provides network researchers with
international facilities to deploy and test network measurement tools
on the commercial Internet. The project hopes to support researchers
in their efforts to analyze Internet usage trends and provide
consumers with greater transparency in the services they are receiving
from their Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
As part of its initial development phase, M-Lab will make available
three network measurement tools that provide users the ability to test
their network connection speed and diagnose network performance
problems - including whether specific applications like BitTorrent are
being blocked or adversely impacted by throttled bandwidth. These
tools include: Network Path and Applications Diagnosis (NPAD),
developed by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center; Glasnost, developed
by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems; and the Network
Diagnostic Tool (NDT), developed by Argonne National Laboratory and
Internet2.
NDT, now under active development by the Internet2 community, is an
open-source network performance testing system designed to identify
computer configuration and network infrastructure problems that
degrade a user's broadband experience. NDT provides network
performance information directly to an end user by running a short
diagnostic test between a Web browser on the user's computer and one
of several NDT servers deployed around the country. Google is
supporting the deployment of 36 new NDT servers throughout the U.S.
and Europe as part of the M-Lab project.
"M-Lab welcomes the participation of Internet2 members to use the
platform and help us make it flourish," said Rich Carlson Internet2
network engineer, a developer of NDT, and founding member of M-Lab.
"This week's announcement is only the beginning. By further engaging
the research and education community, M-Lab hopes to enable many more
researchers to test new network measurement tools and analyze data
critical to understanding Internet performance that will be key to its
continued growth."
NDT and NPAD servers will be registered in the global Information
Service used by the perfSONAR performance monitoring system, which
allows researchers around the world to easily discover a server
appropriate to their physical location. The data these servers collect
will also be discoverable, allowing researchers to easily generate new
insights into how the global Internet is operating. M-Lab complements
the work of the Internet2 Observatory, which provides facilities on
the nationwide Internet2 Network for researchers to test and analyze
data of high performance research networks.
For more information, visit:
http://measurementlab.net/
Media Contact:
Lauren Rotman
Lauren@internet2.edu
(202) 872-9119