TASK OUTLINE
Using a Traceroute internet tool, Traceroute from the chosen site to curtin.edu.au in order to ascertain the following bits of info:
Number of hops
Average time in milliseconds from the tools site to the curtin server.
IP Address for curtin.edu.au
PROCESS
I used the centralops site at http://centralops.net/co/ to complete this task.
On typing in the destination address: curtin.edu.au, I got the following result which shows that the number of hops is 20 and an average time in milliseconds of 248 rtt. Initially I wasn’t clear on how to calculate the average but discovered via the discussion forums (thanks to Robert for this). It also returned the IP address for the Curtin site as: 134.7.179.53
Tracing route to curtin.edu.au [134.7.179.53]..
FURTHER EXPLORATON…..
Here I compared the time taken to ‘ping’ the webct site at Curtin University using internet tools in different locations.
The first test was using IPNet Monitor, an internet tools client downloaded to my Mac, and the second was using the Centralops site as per the previous tests. The results were different:
IPNet Monitor – Average time: 353 ms
Centralops – Average time 251 ms
Although in from a ‘general use’ point of view (searching, viewing pages etc) a rtt of this length wouldn’t be an issue, I do wonder whether this would be high enough that it might present issues with any ‘real time’ type use i.e gaming, internet auctions, Skype. I’ve seen various forums for gamers discussing pings over 250 ms as being unacceptable.
In my case, my geographical location (the UK) may have been a factor in the higher rtt (via IPNet Monitor), along with use of wireless and perhaps my provider.
This seems to be confirmed by running a Traceroute from my computer. This time the connection took 30 hops and the average rtt had increased to 613(!). I also notice that there seemed to be an issue with the connection, the final 10 hops did not appear recieved. I’ve made a note to re-try this a little later in case some sort of genuine outage is creating a problem.
SUMMARY & OBSERVATIONS
Overall, I found the internet tools tasks very interesting and can see the relevance for diagnostic and potentially even use in application design and testing i.e applications such as games that rely on low latency to be successful.
This task also got me thinking about the future of the internet and how the issue of latency affects users. It makes sense that there is likely to be advances in technology from a hardware point of view that would eventually make it possible for the internet to progress to ‘real time’ from all global points… a quick search did reveal some serious research out there. http://www.smartinternet.com.au/default.aspx?ArticleID=97
