North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Ping triangulation
On Sat, 27 Jul 1996, Roy wrote: > They use the ping times to figure out which server would be closest. > All the servers are not located in the same place. The idea is that > european users may receive better service from a european server. This brings to mind a question: are ping times a more appropriate vector than hopcount or topological locality? Ping times reflect a lot of important (but ephemeral) aspects of performance which more direct measurements do not. E.g., the latency of trans-pond links nicely reflects their cost in a matter not easily captured in simple topology maps. Ditto for congested links which might be closer to the viewer. Of course cacheing solves all of these problems (J <- hook next to bait), but in this imperfect of worlds, what reasons, if any, make ping time less attractive than other metrics? I used to think them simple-minded and sloppy, but now I am not so sure. _____________________________________________________________________ Todd Graham Lewis Linux! Core Engineering Mindspring Enterprises [email protected] (800) 719 4664, x2804 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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