Internet measurement and data analysis: passive and active measurement

kc claffy and Sean McCreary
Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis - CAIDA
San Diego Supercomputer Center,
University of California, San Diego

The infrastructure of the Internet can be considered the cybernetic equivalent of an ecosystem. The last mile connections from the Internet to homes and businesses are supplied by thousands of capillaries, small and medium sized Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which are in turn interconnected by `arteries' maintained by transit (backbone) providers. The global infrastructure of the Internet consists of a complex array of competing telecommunications carriers and providers, a very difficult infrastructure to analyze diagnostically except within the borders of an individual provider's network. Nonetheless, insights into the overall health and scalability of the system are critical to the Internet's successful evolution.