What characterics of active measurement tools are most important for backbone engineers? Tools for:
assessment of end-to-end performance analysis
macroscopic depictions ('weather')
connectivity/reachability analyses
What data is most meaningful to collect with respect to:
diagnosing network problems
capacity planning and trends analysisi
analysis of the effects of changes in topology and trends in traffic
How is domestic/global Internet performance changing over time?
Are 'weather-reports' a good way to keep users appraised of conditions on the Net - and are any of the current ones [ NAMES…. ] useful from ISPs' perspective?
Would having a baseline against which an ISP could compare performance be important?
How is the Automotive Industry certification program working (from ISPs' perspectives)?
What is the implication of increased measurement by users for ISPs? How real is the possibility of networks turning off ICMP traffic - and would this result in deployment of more burdensome forms of measurement, i.e., TCP SYNs?
What mechanisms are there for displaying/graphing large scale sets of data on round trip times (RTT) and variances? How important is 3-D vs. 2-D depictions?
Path Analysis:
What engineering insights can be gained from macro-level depictions of the Internet infrastructure and the connectivity of its networks?
How can path analysis tools best help pinpoint routing instabilities and other anomalies, and track their secondary, downstream effects, e.g. on round trip times, availability, packet loss across specific paths. Would a repository of such data/analyses help predictive capabilities on the Internet?
How are the lengths of paths (hops a packet must traverse) changing and what effect is this having on Net performance, both from the ISPs and customer's perspectives?
How can ISPs best implement tools designed for identifying and tracking changes in Internet topologies? What tools are needed for backbone engineers to compare the expected with actual results of new configurations?
Threats/Vulnerability:
Active measurements can be used to identify strategic backbone routers -- is the vulnerability of these routers a concern to ISPs?
What is the degree of dispersion (redundancy) of the network? Are ISPs 'prepared' for potential physical or electronic attacks upon their infrastructure?