computer science

PingER Project

PingER Project is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand PingER Project rather than just read about it. In short: PingER, an acronym for Ping End-to-end Reporting, measures round-trip travel time of a packet of data between two nodes on the Internet. The PingER' Project uses a simple tool—the ping command—to get valuable insights into performance of the Internet backbone.

Key takeaways

PingER Project belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect PingER Project to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of PingER Project from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

PingER, an acronym for Ping End-to-end Reporting, measures round-trip travel time of a packet of data between two nodes on the Internet. The PingER' Project uses a simple tool—the ping command—to get valuable insights into performance of the Internet backbone. High energy particle physicists began the project in 1995, because they needed to access large amounts of data at laboratories sometimes as far away as across an ocean. They needed to know how the Internet was performing, identify problems, and apply solutions. At U.S.Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, PingER let researcher Les Cottrell "keep tabs on how parts of the network were performing and root out any problems." PingER is one of several collaborative projects having measurement infrastructures for monitoring Internet Traffic.

How PingER works Using the ping command, monitoring nodes initiate transmissions to remote nodes, then measure and record the response times, or the lack of responses. Each combination of monitoring node-remote node is called a pair. PingER is easy to implement, because little special software must be installed to make measurements. Almost any networked computer will respond to a ping, and require nothing added. Monitoring nodes require only a script to issue ping commands and record results. In September 1999 there were 1977 pairs, consisting of 511 remote nodes in 54 countries. PingER uses the data to determine latency (round-trip_time), jitter (variability of round-trip_time), and loss (percentage of packets that never return). The results of the PingER Project, including source code, are made available to the public at no cost. This collection of data shows long term world-wide Internet performance trends, covering over 750 sites in over 165 countries. Researchers at the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan, have been dealing with increasingly large amounts of PingER data by using a relational database. From a vantage point between Europe and Africa, researchers at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Italy used PingER to reveal the slow progress of improving Africa's connections to the rest of the world.

Poor results for Africa Analysis of some of the PingER data reveal that:

Africa's internet was lagging 16 years behind Europe in 2009. The World Soccer Cup in South Africa in 2010 led to new submarine cables, resulting in much shorter return times. Angola, Zimbabia, Tanzania, Uganda have shown improvements as they converted from satellite to terrestrial links.

See also Iperf Network operations center PerfSONAR

References

External links The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (caida) Internet Measurement Infrastructure Surveyor approach to performance measurement

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with PingER Project

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what PingER Project claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to PingER Project before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about PingER Project ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of PingER Project

In research: PingER Project appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses PingER Project in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: PingER Project is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Internet architecture, Network performance, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for PingER Project outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study PingER Project in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what PingER Project means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain PingER Project out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is PingER Project in simple terms?

Why does PingER Project matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study PingER Project?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on PingER Project.