Hi all, Enclosed is the text of a project proposal for a TERENA activity on network metrics and statistics collection. As a kick off, we have created a task force mailing list for those interested. If you would like to join, send a message to: listserv@terena.nl containing only the text: subscribe tf-etm Your Real Name replacing "Your Real Name" as appropriate. Feel free to forward this to any parties you think might be interested. Regards, Ariel T. Sobelman Project name: TERENA Task Force on European Traffic Studies ----------------------------------------------------------- Justification --------------- The problem of network traffic growth prediction may be attributed to the difficulties associated with network operation. There is one common ground, however, that which is the end result: performance. Many network operators already collect basic statistics on their own network's performance and traffic flows. Typically, this includes measurement of throughput, delay and availability. However, the only baseline against which networks evaluate performance is their own past performance metrics. There is no data available for national-level comparisons with other networks' performance. It is vital for both users and providers to have access to information on end-to-end performance. Such information is beyond the realm of what is currently undertaken by individual networks. The project objective is to collect and analyse data, which will enable focusing on the causes of decreased performance, and proposing corrective actions. The activities include the development a mechanism and structure for collecting statistics of traffic loads on an end-to-end international level, measurements of delays, flow capacity and packet loss information. Objectives --------------- The vacuum created in national-level statistics/metric collection has significantly complicated planning by member countries and service providers. While detailed traffic and performance measurements are essential to identifying the causes of network problems and formulating corrective actions, it is trend analysis and accurate network/system monitoring which permit network managers to identify "hot spots", predict problems before they occur, and identify ways to avoid them by efficient deployment of resources and optimising of network configuration. As the explosive growth and dependence on the Information Infrastructure continues, it is critical that mechanisms be established to enable infrastructure planning and analysis. This proposal describes a possible mechanism for undertaking a project to concentrate current efforts. It is proposed to address these problems on two levels of relevance: 1. significance to analysis of network performance 2. relevance to Internet settlements These activities will include cross-European measurements of total traffic through specific links and the mapping of reachable destinations covered by a route, Delay measurements,flow capacity, continental averages of hops, and rate of packet loss monitoring. These measurements will be conducted using publicly available software packages. The project is not anticipated to require efforts beyond minor changes to some software. In order to enable reliable statistical analysis, the sampling periods have been set at 6 months per phase, from the starting date of phase I & II experiments. It is also intended to participate in the IPPM working group of the IETF Deliverables: ---------------- Software kit for all participating members - for total traffic stats: TCP dump samples, router stats, Network Probe Daemon - for delay measurements: ping-based utilities, Treno - for packet loss stats: To be discussed - Hop counts: traceroute Report: Guidelines for setting up a statistics-collection operation compatible with the rest of the project - guidelines for peering - topology of participating links Web site concentrating the European statistics collected - General database with all raw data - various views of the data (graphical and numeric) - analysed data, patterns, related papers, ongoing work etc. Report: Summary of network patterns and problems identified by the project Report: Results of phase I, and recommendation for immediate possible corrective steps. Final Report: Results of traffic model. A report on network patterns and identification of necessary long terms predictions and recommendation for corrective steps. Milestones -------------- Phase I 1. Web page with description of the project, participating partners and updates 2. List of issues that need to be addressed and agreed 3. Available equipment from participants (and document this on the Web site) 4. Structure of phase I statistics collection 5. Construction of data base 6. End of Phase I experiments and population of database 7. Analysis & evaluation Phase II 8. Planning of Phase 2 goals for predictive model 9. List of issues to be addressed and agreed 10. Planning experiments phase 2 11. Begin sampling 12. Analysis & final reporting Timeline Phase I November 1996: Milestone 1 & 2 December 1997: Milestone 3 April 1997: Milestone 4 June 1997 Milestone 5 June- Nov. 1997: Data collectioe phase November 1997: Milestone 7 Phase II January 1998: Milestone 8 , 9 March 1998: Milestone 10 April-Nov. 1998: Data collection phase December 1998: Milestone 12 Ariel T. Sobelman TERENA Singel 466-468 1017 AW Amsterdam The Netherlands +31-20-639-1131 (Tel) +31-20-639-3289 (Fax)