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We will maintain a database of router locations. To populate this we will identify representative targets in regions of the world and carriers, and make regular traceroutes from the MAs to the targets and use the geolocation to locate the unknown positions of the routers at each hop. Having a database of router locations will mean the that interactively locating the routes in a traceroute will be much faster and interactive(no need to wait while we ping the router at each hop from multiple MAs). If the router location is not in the database when a user requests a visual traceroute then the result will be added to the database.
To assist in populating this database, we will also develop a tool to provide a traceroute archive. The traceroutes will be made from an MA at Stanford in the US and a second in Pakistan in Islamabad to over multiple end hosts in over 160 countries (see http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wan-mon/viper/pinger-coverage-gmap.html for a map of the target hosts). The measurements will be made regularly (initially daily) and archived. The measurements , will be accessible via the web, together with an analysis and including: a comparison of the traceroutes for 3 selected days (by default the most recent three days), identifying routing routes and comparing traceroute RTTs to hops with those for ping RTTs. This data may later be analyzable to identify significant changes in the traceroutes.
Traceroute visualization tool
This will be based on, evolve from and extend the TULIP traceroute visualization tool (see http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/tulip/ and https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=160007381 which has now no longer supported and fallen into disuse.
Outcomes
A web based tool to vizualize traceroutes.
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