1. Introduction
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (SEECS) is a constituent college of National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan - SEECS was formerly known as NIIT (NUST Institute of Information Technology). Since SEECS has been an important collaborator with SLAC, CERN and Caltech, we prepared a case study presenting an overview of the issues faced by SEECS in particular and Pakistan in general.
Currently the PingER project maintains six (7) monitoring nodes in Pakistan, measuring the performance of sites listed in the table - monitored nodes - below. The measurements date back to 2003. Since then there has been a gradual increase in the number of monitoring nodes which helps in making reliable inferences. These monitoring sites are deployed in Islamabad at the following locations:
Table 1: Monitoring nodes:
Location |
No. of monitoring nodes |
---|---|
SEECS, NUST |
4 |
NCP, Quaid-e-Azam University |
1 |
COMSATS University |
1 |
Pakistan Education Research Network (PERN) |
1 |
Note that Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN) "is a nationwide educational intranet connecting premiere educational and research institutions of the country. PERN focuses on collaborative research, knowledge sharing, resource sharing, and distance learning by connecting people through the use of Intranet and Internet resources". PERN uses the services of NTC (National Telecommunication Corporation), which is the national telecommunication carrier for all official/government services in Pakistan, for the provision of infrastructure and bandwidth to the universities in Pakistan.
Table 2: Monitored - Remote - Nodes:
Remote Node |
University/Organization |
Service Provider |
Available |
End Host Location |
---|---|---|---|---|
SDNPK (wb.sdnpk.org) |
Islamabad |
Cyber NET (cyber.net.pk) |
|
Islamabad |
PERN (www.pern.edu.pk) |
Islamabad |
PERN |
|
Islamabad |
LSE (lahoreschoolofeconomics.edu.pk) |
Lahore |
|
|
Lahore |
COMSATS (comsats.edu.pk) |
Islamabad |
PERN |
|
Islamabad |
NAYATEL (nayatel.com) |
Islamabad |
Micronet/Nayatel (dsl.net.pk) |
|
Islamabad |
BUITMS (buitms.edu.pk) |
Quetta |
PERN* |
|
Quetta |
SSUET (ssuet.edu.pk) |
Karachi |
PERN |
|
Karachi |
UPESH (www.upesh.edu.pk) |
Peshawar |
PERN* |
|
Islamabad |
PIEAS (www.pieas.edu.pk) |
Nilore |
PERN* |
|
Islamabad |
NUST (www.niit.edu.pk) |
Rawalpindi |
Micronet/Nayatel (dsl.net.pk) |
1 - 1.5 Mbps |
Rawalpindi |
GIKI (www.giki.edu.pk) |
Topi |
PERN* |
|
Topi |
UET (uet.edu.pk) |
Lahore |
PERN |
|
Lahore |
HU (hu.edu.pk) |
Hazara |
PERN |
|
Hazara |
DSL.NET (dsl.net.pk) |
Islamabad |
Micronet/Nayatel (dsl.net.pk) |
|
Islamabad |
* These results are not confirmed.
Thus the coverage of PingER in Pakistan can be summarized by the following figure. The monitoring nodes are labeled red where as the monitored nodes are labeled green.
Figure 1 |
---|
|
The data presented here has been collected from the monitoring sites mentioned above. A copy of the same can be obtained from here. We study and filter the results for anomalous observations and present the analysis below.
2. Routing
We first look at the International connectivity to the PingER monitored sites.
2.1. International Connectivity
Below are the routing results we compiled using (the Route Visualizer and) the monitoring sites in North America, Australia, Europe and East Asia. These results enable us to draw the following conclusions:
- Pakistan maintains multiple routes to the world. These routes usually transit the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore and China.
- Having direct connections with United States, United Kingdom and China, provides shortest possible paths to roughly 90% of the world Internet users and resources.
- Since Pakistan is directly connected to the United States and the United Kingdom which should have a significant impact on the Round Trip Times for most of the Internet traffic. We shall see so in the statistics presented below.
Figure 2 |
Figure 3 |
Figure 4 |
Figure 5 |
---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
2.2. Routing within Pakistan
The routing results compiled using monitoring nodes within Pakistan showed that the traffic stayed within Pakistan. The Internet Exchange Points appear to be operating as expected. This is also confirmed by the Round Trip Times discussed below. Anomalies what so ever, were not observed. The fact that the IXPs are operating as expected is a pleasant observation as compared to the past (2004) when traffic originating within Pakistan and destined for a host inside Pakistan would exit the country and transit an international carrier before reaching its destination.
3. Performance Results
Data files: Set I [[xls|^performance-PK-PK.xls]], Set II: [[xls|^performance-data-SLAC-PK-mac.xls]]
Here we discuss the performance metrics as measured by the PingER monitoring hosts.
3.1. Performance as seen from SLAC
Figure 6 |
Figure 7 |
Figure 8 |
---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Figure 9 |
Figure 10 |
---|---|---|
GIKI |
|
|
LSE |
|
|
NAYATEL |
|
|
SEECS,NUST |
|
|
SSUET |
|
|
UPESH |
|
|
3.2. Performance as seen from SEECS, NUST and within Pakistan
Figure 11 |
Figure 12 |
---|---|
|
|
Figure 13 |
Figure 14 |
Figure 15 |
Figure 16 |
---|---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
Traceroute results showing RTT progression:
From SLAC to COMSATS traceroute -m 30 -q 3 -f 3 203.124.40.143' traceroute to 203.124.40.143 (203.124.40.143), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 3 rtr-border1-p2p-core2 (134.79.252.137) 1.545 ms 1.409 ms 1.369 ms 4 192.68.191.245 (192.68.191.245) 0.433 ms 0.350 ms 1.397 ms 5 sunnsdn2-slacmr1.es.net (134.55.217.2) 1.689 ms 0.594 ms 0.606 ms Icmp checksum is wrong 6 sunncr1-sunnsdn2.es.net (134.55.209.98) 1.948 m 0.889 ms 1.058 ms 7 eqxsjrt1-sunncr1.es.net (134.55.220.85) 1.472 ms 2.516 ms 2.496 ms 8 ge13-1.br02.sjo01.pccwbtn.net (206.223.116.48) 1.696 ms 2.656 ms 2.094 ms 9 ptcl.pos11-0.cr02.hkg04.pccwbtn.net (63.218.2.126) 277.222 ms 277.752 ms 277.524 ms 10 khi-drni01-gw2.pie.net.pk (221.120.250.245) 279.790 ms 281.032 ms 279.540 ms 11 static.khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.128.174) 277.720 ms static.khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.128.173) 282.210 ms static.khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.128.156) 281.113 ms 12 * * * 13 rwp44.pie.net.pk (202.125.148.164) 308.943 ms 308.652 ms 310.386 ms 14 rwp44.pie.net.pk (202.125.159.210) 300.656 ms 300.619 ms 300.898 ms 15 comsats.pie.net.pk (221.120.235.170) 307.241 ms comsats.pie.net.pk (221.120.235.166) 303.849 ms comsats.pie.net.pk (221.120.235.170) 307.327 ms 16 * * * From KHU to SSUET traceroute to 121.52.157.145 (121.52.157.145), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 163.180.116.1 (163.180.116.1) 1.765 ms 0.913 ms 0.956 ms 2 192.168.100.30 (192.168.100.30) 0.409 ms 0.250 ms 0.248 ms 3 163.180.190.254 (163.180.190.254) 0.807 ms 0.845 ms 0.797 ms 4 203.255.249.162 (203.255.249.162) 0.761 ms 0.770 ms 0.791 ms 5 192.168.77.2 (192.168.77.2) 1.364 ms 1.445 ms 1.390 ms 6 192.168.3.9 (192.168.3.9) 1.794 ms 1.614 ms 1.466 ms 7 61.252.48.181 (61.252.48.181) 1.418 ms 1.772 ms 1.480 ms 8 202.179.241.81 (202.179.241.81) 38.940 ms 40.554 ms 38.841 ms 9 sg-so-01.bb-v4.noc.tein2.net (202.179.241.14) 70.792 ms 70.885 ms 70.690 ms 10 202.179.249.46 (202.179.249.46) 277.305 ms 276.984 ms 276.916 ms 11 khi-drni01-gw2.pie.net.pk (221.120.250.245) 279.257 ms 277.627 ms 278.032 ms 12 hi77c2-Sw494b.pie.net.pk (202.125.128.134) 279.787 ms 279.693 ms 280.300 ms 13 * * * 14 khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.137.154) 290.099 ms khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.137.158) 282.534 ms khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.137.154) 300.919 ms 15 * * * 16 121.52.157.145.pern.pk (121.52.157.145) 288.338 ms 295.533 ms 295.273 ms From KHU to SEECS traceroute to 115.186.131.82 (115.186.131.82), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets 1 163.180.116.1 (163.180.116.1) 0.859 ms 0.830 ms 0.952 ms 2 192.168.100.30 (192.168.100.30) 0.286 ms 0.262 ms 0.240 ms 3 163.180.190.254 (163.180.190.254) 1.034 ms 0.815 ms 0.741 ms 4 221.147.177.41 (221.147.177.41) 1.116 ms 1.534 ms 1.110 ms 5 221.163.40.70 (221.163.40.70) 2.791 ms 2.996 ms 2.659 ms 6 221.163.40.65 (221.163.40.65) 1.235 ms 1.265 ms 1.237 ms 7 220.78.135.177 (220.78.135.177) 1.768 ms 1.376 ms 1.282 ms 8 220.73.149.153 (220.73.149.153) 2.496 ms 1.920 ms 1.924 ms 9 59.18.52.26 (59.18.52.26) 1.682 ms 1.688 ms 1.747 ms 10 59.18.63.34 (59.18.63.34) 2.070 ms 1.960 ms 2.016 ms 11 pos5-2.cr01.tok01.pccwbtn.net (63.218.147.17) 32.891 ms 32.668 ms 32.814 ms 12 pos12-1.cr02.hkg04.pccwbtn.net (63.218.146.50) 69.368 ms 68.813 ms 68.774 ms 13 ptcl.pos11-0.cr02.hkg04.pccwbtn.net (63.218.2.126) 312.585 ms 312.865 ms 312.720 ms 14 khi-drni01-gw2.pie.net.pk (221.120.250.245) 311.026 ms 314.919 ms 310.949 ms 15 static.khi77.pie.net.pk (202.125.128.174) 313.425 ms 313.562 ms 314.118 ms 16 rwp44.pie.net.pk (221.120.254.5) 336.111 ms 335.974 ms 336.116 ms 17 rwp44.pie.net.pk (202.125.148.164) 336.796 ms 336.971 ms 336.663 ms 18 rwp44.pie.net.pk (202.125.155.170) 333.485 ms 333.120 ms 333.553 ms 19 Onyx.rwp44d2.pie.net.pk (202.125.155.122) 338.855 ms 338.722 ms 338.572 ms 20 58-65-175-221.nayatel.pk (58.65.175.221) 360.480 ms 58-65-175-217.nayatel.pk (58.65.175.217) 354.434 ms 58-65-175-221.nayatel.pk (58.65.175.221) 360.170 ms 21 58-65-175-233.nayatel.pk (58.65.175.233) 354.897 ms 354.896 ms 354.688 ms 22 115-186-128-178.nayatel.pk (115.186.128.178) 368.485 ms 365.507 ms 365.828 ms 23 115-186-131-82.nayatel.pk (115.186.131.82) 358.111 ms !<10> 357.391 ms !<10> 357.530 ms !<10>