The Internet2 Observatory supports the development of an integrated data archive of the performance and network status information collected on the Internet2 Network with the aim of providing information to researchers who wish to study an operational network in a way not possible in a laboratory environment or on the commercial Internet. The Internet2 Observatory project—envisioned as an integral part of the Internet2 network upgrade—provides a significant level of support for the network research community at Internet2 member universities. In addition, the Observatory provides for the collocation of network experiments and measurement servers developed by the research community.
How does the Intenet2 Observatory support the needs of the network research community?
Internet2 Support for Network Research - Martin Swany, Ph.D., from the University of Delaware [view video]
Download the Internet2 Observatory Infosheet to learn more. [pdf]
The research projects associated with the Observatory are organized into two different types: 1) Projects using data collected by Internet2 Network engineers using equipment located in the nodes and operated by the NOC, and 2) Data collected by separate research projects using their own equipment collocated in the Network racks.
Data collected by Network engineers using equipment located in the nodes and operated by the NOC is open to all research projects and is available either online or through special arrangements. Data is also collected by separate research projects using equipment collocated in Network nodes. This opportunity is open to all Internet2 members (university, corporate, or affiliates) and is based on competitive proposals. The purpose of this component is to provide the research community with a vehicle for basic network research and all results from that research are expected to be open to the public through the process of peer review.
The Internet2 Observatory data collections reside on a variety of different databases that are available online through a variety of programmatic interfaces. Taken as a whole, the databases comprise a large correlated database for use by the research community.
A collection of views of the network data collected by Network engineers through the Observatory project are available. They provide an overall picture of how the Network performs. Drilling down on daily graphs, one can obtain a "day in the life of the Internet2 Network."
For more information, visit the archived Abilene Observatory pages.
