Diagnosing the Internet's ills.Doctors fire X rays into a patient, collect them as they emerge, and then use computers to piece together information on the health of internal organs. Researchers are now developing an analogous scheme to visualize what is going on within the vast, international network of computer networks and telecommunications links known as the Internet. Daniel McRobb, Tracie E. Monk, and Kimberly C. Claffy of the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA (IPA: /ˈkeɪdə/)) is a collaborative undertaking among organizations in the commercial, government, and research sectors aimed at promoting greater (CAIDA CAIDA Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis ), based at the University of California's San Diego Supercomputer Center “SDSC” redirects here. For the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, see Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). , describe their Internet tomography project in a paper available at the NATURE Web site (http://helix.nature.com/webmatters/ tomog.html). Made up of researchers from academia, government, and industry, CAIDA represents a significant effort to track data traffic (SN: 10/17/98, p. 255), map usage patterns, and depict the Internet's structure. The Internet can be thought of as a rapidly growing organism, the researchers say. With new connections among the backbone networks made hourly, "it is critical for the evolution of the Internet that insights into its overall health ... are obtained," the team asserts. Claffy's team has developed a computer program called skitter skit·ter v. skit·tered, skit·ter·ing, skit·ters v.intr. 1. To move rapidly along a surface, usually with frequent light contacts or changes of direction; skip or glide quickly: to send small, standard packets of data from six sources in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. to more than 29,000 destinations around the world. The scientists collect data on the round-trip time round-trip time - (RTT) A measure of the current delay on a network, found by timing a packet bounced off some remote host. This can be done with ping -s. and path followed as each packet hops from computer to computer to get to its destination. Computer mapping of that information allows the researchers to visualize how the parts of the Internet are connected at a given time. "One of the useful features is the identification of critical Internet components," says Dave Plonka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison “University of Wisconsin” redirects here. For other uses, see University of Wisconsin (disambiguation). A public, land-grant institution, UW-Madison offers a wide spectrum of liberal arts studies, professional programs, and student activities. . Preliminary images of the Internet's structure reveal that a surprisingly small number of backbone networks carry the bulk of the data, Claffy and her colleagues report. Future plans include increasing the number of sources and destinations and refining visualization techniques. |
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