Re: wanted: 'beacon' hosts ?

[Simon Lockhart <simonl () rd bbc co uk>]

> Can anyone help (reciprocally would be fine) by providing permission to use
> ICMP Echo and HTTP GET requests against something on their network (that is
> well connected and reliable) so that I can build SLA-targetted averages for
> performance and packet loss ?

I'm sure we could do something similar, if we could get access to a 
similar set of targets in exchange.

> I *DO NOT* want to get involved in buying this data from anyone please. I am
> very happy to provide this service in return, or even just for the sake of
> it without anything back. What I evisage is the 5-miutely 'GET'ing of a
> 20k-ish text file from a web server and a group of 5 ICMP Echos at about the
> same intervals...

It would probably be nice to have some sort of moderated machine-readable 
list of targets, with geographical locations, and a simple bit of code to 
pick a "random" set of hosts to sample, such that you can build up a 
profile of network performance to geographic areas of the internet 
(transfer rate, hop count, RTT, packet loss).

I'm fairly sure there's commercial services which offer this, but it 
wouldn't be too difficult to build a freeware solution.

> PPS If people are willing to offer this as a 'public' service, I will
> happily summarise back to the list and/or build a web site with details.

Sure, if this turns into something we can all gain something from, we'll 
be interested, and will probably put up a box to support it.

Simon
-- 
Simon Lockhart                       |   Tel: +44 (0)1737 839676 
Internet Engineering Manager         |   Fax: +44 (0)1737 839516 
BBC Internet Services                | Email: Simon.Lockhart () bbc co uk 
Kingswood Warren,Tadworth,Surrey,UK  |   URL: http://support.bbc.co.uk/