then why not test in the locations where backbones put web servers? mci.com is not currently located in the facility(ies) where mci offers web hosting. i expect other companies could say the same. Jeff Young young@mci.net

Return-Path: owner-nanog@merit.edu Received: from merit.edu (merit.edu [198.108.1.42]) by postoffice.Reston.mci.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA01445; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 21:04:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) by merit.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA02605; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 20:54:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: by merit.edu (bulk_mailer v1.5); Fri, 27 Jun 1997 20:48:00 -0400 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by merit.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) id UAA02218 for nanog-outgoing; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 20:47:58 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ipad2.boardwatch.com (ipad2.boardwatch.com [204.144.169.5]) by merit.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA02163 for <nanog@merit.edu>; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 20:47:24 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ws38.boardwatch.com ([199.33.229.38]) by boardwatch.com with ESMTP (IPAD 1.52) id 2069900 ; Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:48:22 EST From: "Jack Rickard" <jack.rickard@boardwatch.com> To: "George Herbert" <gherbert@crl.com>, <nanog@merit.edu> Subject: Re: Keynote/Boardwatch Internet Backbone Index A better test!!! Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 16:35:38 -0600 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <199706272248.2069900@boardwatch.com> Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2034

This is gibberish George. The measurements were taken from different networks, in 27 different locations. It is not even potentially the case that anyone would be measured within their network solely. It is not optimized for customers getting to their own web server.

It is a simulation of the end user world or footprint. If you have a web server on one backbone, how will it look to that user population, as compared to if it were on another backbone.

Jack Rickard

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From: George Herbert <gherbert@crl.com> To: Jack Rickard <jack.rickard@boardwatch.com> Cc: Ben Black <black@zen.cypher.net>; nanog@merit.edu; gherbert@crl.com Subject: Re: Keynote/Boardwatch Internet Backbone Index A better test!!! Date: Friday, June 27, 1997 3:20 PM

From: "Jack Rickard" <jack.rickard@boardwatch.com>

...

I'm not a marketing droid. But only a moron would think that overall performance would NOT affect the download of a web page, which is essentially what you are attempting to say.

Many, many things will affect the download of a web page, when it's an internal server the primary one being where that server is relative to the customer dialins, and how the internal network congestion is handled.

This particular test would favor sites whose backbone is highly optimized for their customers getting to their own web server, and only their own web server. Most servers are put where their access is best balanced, and for nearly all servers, that's closer to the outside world than internal customers, because the vast majority of connections are external.

This test completely missed any issues related to inter-ISP connectivity and performance. You could score at the top of the pack with a ISP which was disconnected from the rest of the internet during the test period, in fact, a key indicator that the measurement is nearly worthless as an overall gage.

-george william herbert gherbert@crl.com I speak only for myself, and occationally my cats.