New TTM features

[Rene Wilhelm <]

Dear Test-box Hosts,

We are pleased to inform about some changes and new features
which recently have been implemented on the TTM website:

- traceroute database stores originating AS numbers

  The daily processing of collected traceroutes between the TTM boxes
  has been expanded to look up and store originating AS number for
  each IP hop. In the initial implementation we consult the Internet
  Routing Registry at whois.ripe.net, using the -a flag to search route
  objects in both the RIPE database and the databases mirrored by this
  server such as RADB. A next version will get the information from
  the data collected by the RIS project.

  The traceroute query at http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/ttm/routing
  shows the AS information in an additional column. Note that 
  for some prefixes more than one originating AS is registered in
  the IRR (i.e. two or more matching route objects are returned); 
  in those cases we list the various AS numbers separated by a /

  Not quite ready, but expected to be released shortly is the extension
  of the routing CGI with an option that condenses the observed
  IP traceroutes to traces in AS space. This will allow you to
  more easily spot big changes in routing, when BGP policies
  cause different AS paths to be followed.
  

- more interaction with summary tables

  The Delay summaries which used to be presented as static HTML pages,
  are now handled by more dynamic CGI scripts, taking input from XML
  data files. As a result, there is much more user control over ordering
  the rows in the table and the criterium for marking cells 'worse'
  (red) or 'better' (green).

  The default behaviour, when accessing the summaries for a box via 
  http://www.ripe.net/ttm/Plots/ , is to sort the table on 'marked cells'
  i.e. the boxes for which the measured percentiles and losses have 
  changed significantly are listed at the top of the table. This allows
  you to quickly spot problematic network connections.

  Through the form at the top of the page, it is possible to change the
  ordering and coloring criteria; for example, ordering on Median value
  in descending order, will immediately show which boxes are furthest
  away from yours (in terms of network latencies).
  
  To ease importing the summary data in other applications, the
  table can also be retrieved in ASCII (CSV, comma seperated values)
  and XML format.
  

- ASCII option in Plots-on-Demand
  
  Similarly to summary tables, the raw data and long term trends can also
  be retrieved in CSV format. To this end we have added an 'ASCII' option to
  the plots-on-demand CGI ( http://www.ripe.net/cgi-bin/ttm/plots-on-demand )

  Note that this is primarily intended to get small subsets of the data
  from one box to another for a short period of time. Users interested
  in *all* data send/received by their box on specific dates, should contact
  tt-ops@localhost we'll then prepare corresponding files in ROOT format.
  

- detailed testbox location 

  Through the http://www.ripe.net/ttm/Plots/gpsinfo.html page we have
  always reported exact coordinates of the various boxes, and offered
  maps on a world/region scale with markers at the testbox locations.

  For those interested in geography, we now take it one step further:
  clicking on a testbox location in http://www.ripe.net/ttm/Plots/locations.cgi
  will take you to a (external to RIPE NCC) page on the Mapquest server
  showing a small map at city scale, centered around the testbox location.
  Depending on the information available at Mapquest, one can subsequently
  zoom in upto a street level scale.


Finally we'd like to remind you of a feature added and announced late June: 

- User-configurable measurements between TTM test-boxes
  (C & D Series testboxes only)

  This feature allows the users to have more control over measurement
  settings and generated traffic between their own and target test-boxes.
  A newly devised configuration page makes it easy to modify transmission
  rates of packets, packet sizes and targets for measurements. Afterwards,
  these settings will be propagated automatically to remote TTM
  test-boxes. We expect to add more parameters in the near future.
   
  Please see the following URLs:
   
  Configuration page on our demo box
  http://tt01.ripe.net:10259/ (click on "Configuration")
   
  Configuration Help
  http://tt01.ripe.net:10259/html/configurationhelp.html


We hope you find these additions useful. Feedback is, as always, welcome
either by e-mail to ttm@localhost or by contacting us in person during
the RIPE 43 meeting next week.

With best regards,

On behalf of the RIPE NCC TTM team,

-- Rene 

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Rene Wilhelm                    RIPE Network Coordination Centre
Email: wilhelm@localhost         Test Traffic Measurements
Phone: +31 20 535 4417          Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Fax:   +31 20 535 4445          http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/mem-services/ttm/
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