Sustainable data-handling and analysis methodologies for the IRNC networks

The goal of this IRNC Special Project was to identify and support the measurement priorities of the International Research Network Connections community.

Sponsored by:
National Science Foundation (NSF)

Principal Investigator: kc claffy

Funding source:  OCI-0963073 Period of performance: March 1, 2010 - February 28, 2014.


Impact Report

The IRNC community works to strengthen international ties between US network researchers and their peers all over the world.

Our project helped IRNC operators better understand their networks by making more effective use of data they already collect as well as by implementing newer technologies for measurement and increased visibility of their networks.

We deployed Ark monitors at interested IRNC sites and are conducting active probing measurements for them. Ongoing Ark reports available at CAIDA web site illustrate the connectivity and performance at the monitored sites.

Sample reports included on our wiki page showcase CAIDA measurement and analysis capabilities and can define and guide future data collection endeavors. The data and tools resulting from this project are released and available for download by approved researchers.

With appropriate incentives, the data, tools, and distillations resulting from the IRNC ProNet operational efforts could be made available to researchers using a privacy-sensitive sharing framework to advance research in a number of sub-disciplines of network science. The flow of this type of information to the research community would support activities in network modeling, simulation, analysis, and theoretical research, thus enabling the IRNC program to play a formative role in the emerging discipline of network science, and enhancing NSF's leading role in sustainable stewardship of cyberinfrastructure.

We received REU funds in Years 1 and 2 of the project and used them to train 4 undergraduate students. The students worked with the CAIDA webmaster on the project web pages, learned about Ark monitors, contributed to the design of measurement reports, helped to organize and participated in the workshops, and assisted CAIDA personnel with various research tasks for this project.

The Internet has become an indispensable public resource permeating all levels of society and being a norm of everyday life for millions of people all over the world. Yet thorough understanding of the structure and dynamics of Internet topology, routing, workload, performance, and vulnerabilities remains a disturbingly elusive priority. This dearth derives from resource constraints, knowledge gaps in what tools are available, and insufficient policy frameworks to support protected data-sharing. Our project addressed all these issues thus enabling informed discussion of the questions that are increasingly relevant to provisioning for future Internet growth and development. Therefore, the society as a whole potentially benefits from our work as much as the research community does.


Additional Content

Sustainable data-handling and analysis methodologies for the IRNC networks

The goal of this IRNC Special Project is to identify and support the measurement priorities of the International Research Network Connections community.

Sustainable data-handling and analysis methodologies for the IRNC networks - Proposal

An abbreviated version of the original proposal

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