Internet Protocol Performance Metrics

Since the National Science Foundation established its network program in the mid-1980s, high-quality Internet access has become increasingly vital to the teaching and research missions of colleges and universities in the United States. During these years, however, the Internet has grown so complex that even well-informed users and engineers have only a fuzzy understanding of its topology, of the paths taken by their data from one internet site to another, and of the reliability and performance of those paths.

Without accurate data about the performance and reliability of their Internet access and without the tools to collect and analyze these data effectively, research and education institutions - as well as other users that require specific performance characteristics - will find it increasingly difficult to make intelligent quantitative network decisions.

Advanced Network & Services worked to help colleges, universities, and other institutions solve this problem by providing leadership staff to the IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) effort of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to define the relevant metrics to help shed light on the health of the Internet.

More information about IPPM can be found here.

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