[ncc-services-wg] New on RIPE Labs: A RIPE Atlas Probe for every RIPE NCC Member

On 02/11/2011 15:32, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
> At 09:52 02/11/2011 +0100, Mirjam Kuehne wrote:
> 
>> [Apologies for duplicate mails]
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
> 
> 2.5MEuro for a "nice to have" system?  What crucial Internet problem are you
> trying to solve with this amount of money?

I asked myself a similar question.  20,000 probes translates roughly to 1 per
active AS, 0.25 per active prefix or 2 per current member.   Let's assume for
a second that we indeed install those 20,000 probes equally distributed amongst
the membership.  Costs are now 2.5M/8000 = 300 euro/member.

Now look at my current provider.  They will have 2 probes installed in a network
with O(100,000) customers.  That is by any standard way too low to provide any
useful information in case of an operational problem.  It is also way too low to
do any meaningful random sampling of performance that the average customer will
see.  In short, one will collect lots of data but it is unclear what operational
use it will have.

Now turn it around: let's say we want to install the probes such that meaningful
information about an AS/prefix/member can be obtained.  That means installing
O(100) probes per unit.  But 20000/100=200, so 7800 members will not benefit
from this service.  In this case, you'd think that the 200 members using the
service pay for it (and the others don't).  However, 2.5M/200 = 12,500
euro/participant.  Looking at the TTM service, I seriously doubt that there will
be 200 members willing to pay for this, plus that providing a service for only
a small group is not what the RIPE NCC is supposed to be doing.

Either way, I have to agree with Hank that the usefulness of this project
is very limited.

Henk

-- 
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Henk Uijterwaal                           Email: henk(at)uijterwaal.nl
                                          http://www.uijterwaal.nl
                                          Phone: +31.6.55861746
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There appears to have been a collective retreat from reality that day.
                                 (John Glanfield, on an engineering project)