<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<p>My solution, for the record:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://gist.github.com/qm2k/ea5f67fcf4e3dd2208ab3bc4ee233560">https://gist.github.com/qm2k/ea5f67fcf4e3dd2208ab3bc4ee233560</a></p>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature"><!-- signature start -->
--<br>
<br>
With Best Regards,<br>
Marat Khalili<br>
<br>
<!-- signature end --></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/03/17 11:47, Marat Khalili wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:0cad3773-8b19-ae42-aaa0-488bb39220cc@rqc.ru"
type="cite">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
I'd like to check worldwide connectivity to my site. I create a
new measurement via web-interface and add, say, 300 probes,
expecting them to cover most world countries. However, looking at
the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://atlas.ripe.net/measurements/7861872/?filter=#map">map</a>
I notice that most are selected from Europe: there're two dozens
in Netherlands (many with same ASNs), but only two in Australia,
one in Japan and nothing in Brazil. Obviously, most ATLAS probes
are from Europe, and selection algorithm does not take probe
density into account.
<p>Wouldn't it be nice to have the following features in
web-interface and API:<br>
* even distribution of probes by country or continent based on
population, area, and other user-defined weight numbers;<br>
* avoiding probes with same ASNs<br>
?</p>
<p>I don't know how current algorithm works, but easiest
modification would be two-step process: (1) randomly select
country based on specified weights; (2) randomly select probe
within country, avoiding earlier selected probes or ASNs and
failing if none are left available; repeat from step 1 until
necessary number of probes is selected.<br>
</p>
<p>P.S. I tried to manually request 1 probe from each country, but
stumbled on unrecognised country codes, countries with no probes
etc. before even trying population-weighted distribution.
Without direct access to probes database nice solution can be
difficult to achieve via current API, although crude one looks
possible.</p>
<p>P.P.S. I understand this option will create more load on probes
in less-covered countries, but since it's possible to limit
selection to specific countries anyway this is hardly a strong
argument against adding this feature.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-signature"><!-- signature start --> --<br>
<br>
With Best Regards,<br>
Marat Khalili<br>
<!-- signature end --></div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>