How to get people to actually plug in their probes?
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again. Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees? People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes. How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!) Philip -- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
With so many failures due to USB issues, it’s hard to accurately assign blame for distributed probes that never come online. To get the 40+ probes I distributed in the Pacific Islands online I sent hosts USB chargers, called and emailed, and reminded until they were plugged in - but then more than half failed. On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 at 12:48, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
-- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
Same here. Unfortunately "more than half of probes failed" means you won't get new probes as an ambassador, according to the distribution policy of Atlas. Experience shows that some probes CANNOT be fixed following the troubleshooting procedures along with using new USB sticks, even on UPS power and backup internet links. Keeping them running is trickier than it seemed and we can't push our hosts to that extent all the time. That's why number of active probes barely exceeds 10k, despite the fact so many of them given out (around 40k I guess), plus efforts & resources put to keep them up & running all these years. Good developers of Atlas must seriously consider reviewing codes and algorithms, especially on the probe side of the deal (e.g. by limiting number of read/writes over memory sticks by mem cache & better utilization of online connection whenever possible, etc) Jonathan Brewer wrote:
With so many failures due to USB issues, it’s hard to accurately assign blame for distributed probes that never come online. To get the 40+ probes I distributed in the Pacific Islands online I sent hosts USB chargers, called and emailed, and reminded until they were plugged in - but then more than half failed. On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 at 12:48, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
Regards, M. Tajbakhsh Lecturer, Advisor, Network & Security Expert.
Same for me. I handed over some probes to people who live in distant areas, knowing they have limited IT knowledge. If their probes fail, they will simply abandon the probe as they consider it as “plug and play” device. Michal
On 31 Mar 2018, at 10:27, M. Tajbakhsh <tajbakhsh@shirazu.ac.ir> wrote:
Same here.
Unfortunately "more than half of probes failed" means you won't get new probes as an ambassador, according to the distribution policy of Atlas. Experience shows that some probes CANNOT be fixed following the troubleshooting procedures along with using new USB sticks, even on UPS power and backup internet links. Keeping them running is trickier than it seemed and we can't push our hosts to that extent all the time. That's why number of active probes barely exceeds 10k, despite the fact so many of them given out (around 40k I guess), plus efforts & resources put to keep them up & running all these years.
Good developers of Atlas must seriously consider reviewing codes and algorithms, especially on the probe side of the deal (e.g. by limiting number of read/writes over memory sticks by mem cache & better utilization of online connection whenever possible, etc)
Jonathan Brewer wrote: With so many failures due to USB issues, it’s hard to accurately assign blame for distributed probes that never come online.
To get the 40+ probes I distributed in the Pacific Islands online I sent hosts USB chargers, called and emailed, and reminded until they were plugged in - but then more than half failed.
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 at 12:48, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote: I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
Regards, M. Tajbakhsh Lecturer, Advisor, Network & Security Expert. _______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
Hi everyone, I relied tge following comment and forgot to hit reply all Regarding probes failures, the procedure to fix it is been discussed earlier (I can not find the procedure to fix it). However, I do agree with you all regarding friends not connecting their probes. I thought about sending them the Probes YouTube video that describes the benefit of the probes but the video is not that interesting. And when I follow up with my friends about the status of their probes that all have the same answer (come and pick it up ). I am really glad that we are discussing this issue. Thank you Philip Regards Dr. Hasnawi On Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 11:47 Michal Krsek <michal@krsek.cz> wrote:
Same for me. I handed over some probes to people who live in distant areas, knowing they have limited IT knowledge. If their probes fail, they will simply abandon the probe as they consider it as “plug and play” device.
Michal
On 31 Mar 2018, at 10:27, M. Tajbakhsh <tajbakhsh@shirazu.ac.ir> wrote:
Same here.
Unfortunately "more than half of probes failed" means you won't get new probes as an ambassador, according to the distribution policy of Atlas. Experience shows that some probes CANNOT be fixed following the troubleshooting procedures along with using new USB sticks, even on UPS power and backup internet links. Keeping them running is trickier than it seemed and we can't push our hosts to that extent all the time. That's why number of active probes barely exceeds 10k, despite the fact so many of them given out (around 40k I guess), plus efforts & resources put to keep them up & running all these years.
Good developers of Atlas must seriously consider reviewing codes and algorithms, especially on the probe side of the deal (e.g. by limiting number of read/writes over memory sticks by mem cache & better utilization of online connection whenever possible, etc)
Jonathan Brewer wrote:
With so many failures due to USB issues, it’s hard to accurately assign blame for distributed probes that never come online.
To get the 40+ probes I distributed in the Pacific Islands online I sent hosts USB chargers, called and emailed, and reminded until they were plugged in - but then more than half failed.
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 at 12:48, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
Regards, M. Tajbakhsh Lecturer, Advisor, Network & Security Expert.
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
I guess it's all the same problem around the world. Same here in Indonesia. For me, everytime I handed over a probe, usually I ask them to fill google form. just basic contacts and name. Some are still offline after 2 year handoff. Try contact them, no response. Some are they already switch jobs. Sometimes if I beg them to send it back to me if they not gonna plug it in, so I can distribute it elsewhere, they just ignore. On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:48 AM, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
-- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
Same problem here. I've even made my own formal "contract" (attached if someone else want to use it) to ensure that if they don't plug it, they return to me, and pay the shipping expenses ... but the people really don't care. I think we need to be stricter about choosing who hand over a probe. Regards, Jordi -----Mensaje original----- De: RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors <ripe-atlas-ambassadors-bounces@ripe.net> en nombre de Budiwijaya <bbuuddiiww@gmail.com> Fecha: jueves, 5 de abril de 2018, 16:37 Para: Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> CC: RIPE Atlas ambassador mailing list <RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net> Asunto: Re: [RIPE Atlas Ambassadors] How to get people to actually plug in their probes? I guess it's all the same problem around the world. Same here in Indonesia. For me, everytime I handed over a probe, usually I ask them to fill google form. just basic contacts and name. Some are still offline after 2 year handoff. Try contact them, no response. Some are they already switch jobs. Sometimes if I beg them to send it back to me if they not gonna plug it in, so I can distribute it elsewhere, they just ignore. On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:48 AM, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote: > I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the > probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again. > > Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find > conferences with more reliable attendees? > > People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move > and the probes end up in boxes. > > How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in > probes? (And keeping them plugged in!) > > Philip > > -- > Philip Paeps > Senior Reality Engineer > Ministry of Information > > _______________________________________________ > RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list > RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net > https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors _______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors ********************************************** IPv4 is over Are you ready for the new Internet ? http://www.consulintel.es The IPv6 Company This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s) named above and further non-explicilty authorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited and will be considered a criminal offense. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited, will be considered a criminal offense, so you must reply to the original sender to inform about this communication and delete it.
I believe this is a problem everywhere to everyone. Same happens to me, although I haven’t distributed too many probes so far, from those that I did, a small fraction is connected. Even those that I sent to people close to me, professors that lead research groups that work on Internet, computer network, measurement related problems… never saw the probes connected. Perhaps more sad is to see these groups publishing papers that somehow use RIPE Atlas or other RIPE tools :-( That’s somehow a social engineering problem. My feeling is that this is a problem we cannot really overcome by carefully choosing who we send probes to. If we end up distributing the probes only to those very close to us, that work in “perfect” network environments, we will never be able to have at least few “eyes” on those uncharted networks where “ordinary” people are — like the probe in my parents home :-) -Ricardo
On Apr 5, 2018, at 11:35, Budiwijaya <bbuuddiiww@gmail.com> wrote:
I guess it's all the same problem around the world. Same here in Indonesia.
For me, everytime I handed over a probe, usually I ask them to fill google form. just basic contacts and name. Some are still offline after 2 year handoff. Try contact them, no response. Some are they already switch jobs.
Sometimes if I beg them to send it back to me if they not gonna plug it in, so I can distribute it elsewhere, they just ignore.
On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:48 AM, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
-- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
Dear all, Thank you for providing your feedback to the list. We follow the discussions and with great interest and this is a known issue that we are well aware of at the RIPE NCC. There seems to me to be several issues ambassadors are facing here: 1. People don’t plug in their probes after getting one from an ambassador 2. Host experiences probe USB failure 3. Hosts lose interest sometimes 4. The RIPE NCC policy that probes needs to be at least 50% active Issue 1: I see a good suggestion from Ricardo to create a telegram (or any other major messenger group) group. Do most of you take this to be a feasible option? In a way, it helps people get connected and to get the kind of assistance they need from the group – specifically on how they use/troubleshoot RIPE Atlas. It can be in the local language. Of course there will be advantages and disadvantages in this. Issue 2: For this, a few months ago we upgraded the software to reduce the risk of failure (see: https://labs.ripe.net/Members/philip_homburg/troubleshooting-ripe-atlas-prob... <https://labs.ripe.net/Members/philip_homburg/troubleshooting-ripe-atlas-probes-usb-sticks>). Further, for the next generation of probe, we will not rely on USB at all anymore, so that will at least solve the USB issue. Issue 3: Any ideas on how to tackle this? We can kindly ask hosts who have lost interest to post their probes back to the RIPE NCC. Only when you think it is appropriate, as culture difference may occur here. Other than that, there is not much we can do. Issue 4: We think this policy is reasonable, and yet we do understand the concern. If you think it should be different, we’d appreciate any constructive feedback. All the best, _________ Lia Hestina RIPE NCC +31 20 535 4385 lhestina@ripe.net Available on: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday
On 5 Apr 2018, at 16:42, <r.deoliveiraschmidt@utwente.nl> <r.deoliveiraschmidt@utwente.nl> wrote:
I believe this is a problem everywhere to everyone.
Same happens to me, although I haven’t distributed too many probes so far, from those that I did, a small fraction is connected.
Even those that I sent to people close to me, professors that lead research groups that work on Internet, computer network, measurement related problems… never saw the probes connected. Perhaps more sad is to see these groups publishing papers that somehow use RIPE Atlas or other RIPE tools :-(
That’s somehow a social engineering problem. My feeling is that this is a problem we cannot really overcome by carefully choosing who we send probes to. If we end up distributing the probes only to those very close to us, that work in “perfect” network environments, we will never be able to have at least few “eyes” on those uncharted networks where “ordinary” people are — like the probe in my parents home :-)
-Ricardo
On Apr 5, 2018, at 11:35, Budiwijaya <bbuuddiiww@gmail.com> wrote:
I guess it's all the same problem around the world. Same here in Indonesia.
For me, everytime I handed over a probe, usually I ask them to fill google form. just basic contacts and name. Some are still offline after 2 year handoff. Try contact them, no response. Some are they already switch jobs.
Sometimes if I beg them to send it back to me if they not gonna plug it in, so I can distribute it elsewhere, they just ignore.
On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 6:48 AM, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
-- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
_______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors
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On 06/04/2018 10:06, Lia Hestina wrote:
1. People don’t plug in their probes after getting one from an ambassadorHaving miserably failed to get my last batch activated (of my last
batch, all seven are currently not online) I can only subscribe to what others have said: you work out interest before, then bring the probe to an event to hand over, you do not ask "who wants a probe" and then give them away. This way, interest must be shown several times before and the handover is a conscientious thing instead of "I have four left, who wants one?".
2. Host experiences probe USB failure The instructions to replace the USB stick are simple once you know where to find them. This means the host should not just have it "plugged in", he or she must be involved in the community to get messages like this. I don't think I have seen messages like "your probe became offline, this is what you need to do to recover it" once my personal probe failed; I had to google up to find others who had the same issue and what they done about it.
Yup, people don't always read mailing lists or blogs. Sounds familiar? (I still think that the "broken USB key" statement has been hugely unfair to the USB key manufacturer, but that's another issue)
3. Hosts lose interest sometimes You should try to post something to another country yourself today. You will find that international postage rates have gone through the roof! I blamed people selling me stuff through USPS for high postage rates until I looked up what they actually need to pay to send something. If you lost interest, especially if you lost interest rather early in the process ("I didn't want to connect this probe thing after all"), would you be willing to spend a lot of money and effort on postage? Also, think of the complexity of customs.
I therefore see huge benefit of, once the probe is deployed, keeping it in the country. This is where _local_ ambassadors can be of great help. Having a probe handed back / brought back to the ambassador, assuming he/she is still in the country, is a lot simpler. The ambassador can then issue the probe to someone else. He'she can also take care of details like having the USB disk replaced, if required, so that the new owner gets something that works. It would again speak against the "ambassador brings probes to international conference to hand out" approach. I consider myself more a probe-mule than an ambassador since the event I handed mine out moves country every year and I have not been in any of the countries my probes are now supposed to be in. I'm still hoping that RIPE NCC would consider making ATLAS-PROBE a package on OpenWRT and the like so that people can use their existing, running hardware to double up as probe point. Geert Jan
On 4/6/18 9:53 AM, Geert Jan de Groot wrote:
I'm still hoping that RIPE NCC would consider making ATLAS-PROBE a package on OpenWRT and the like so that people can use their existing, running hardware to double up as probe point.
this is an execellent idea alot of people are using OpenWrt and it would be simpler to run it as a package which one can just download on the OpenWrt firmware, this can save alot of money shipping probes. and i guess we can have open probes online rather. @GJ i definitely agreed with your suggestion. Mohamed Faye
+1 In fact, NIC.BR is doing it, you can use their box: https://simet.nic.br/simetbox.html Or use in your own box the OpenWRT module: https://github.com/simetnicbr Regards, Jordi -----Mensaje original----- De: RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors <ripe-atlas-ambassadors-bounces@ripe.net> en nombre de Mohamed Faye <mahafaye@gmail.com> Fecha: viernes, 6 de abril de 2018, 12:02 Para: <ripe-atlas-ambassadors@ripe.net> Asunto: Re: [RIPE Atlas Ambassadors] How to get people to actually plug in their probes? On 4/6/18 9:53 AM, Geert Jan de Groot wrote: > I'm still hoping that RIPE NCC would consider making ATLAS-PROBE a > package on OpenWRT and the like so that people can use their existing, > running hardware to double up as probe point. this is an execellent idea alot of people are using OpenWrt and it would be simpler to run it as a package which one can just download on the OpenWrt firmware, this can save alot of money shipping probes. and i guess we can have open probes online rather. @GJ i definitely agreed with your suggestion. Mohamed Faye _______________________________________________ RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors mailing list RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors@ripe.net https://lists.ripe.net/mailman/listinfo/ripe-atlas-ambassadors ********************************************** IPv4 is over Are you ready for the new Internet ? http://www.consulintel.es The IPv6 Company This electronic message contains information which may be privileged or confidential. The information is intended to be for the exclusive use of the individual(s) named above and further non-explicilty authorized disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited and will be considered a criminal offense. If you are not the intended recipient be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information, even if partially, including attached files, is strictly prohibited, will be considered a criminal offense, so you must reply to the original sender to inform about this communication and delete it.
Dear Lia, Please let me correct our course of action a little bit: 1. People, even carefully selected & briefed tech guys, have their concerns about letting probes into their networks and the resources a probe may swallow. (we know that's negligible, they don't believe) 2. Not only memory stick, but probes themselves fail. That happens after about 2 years. Believe me, solutions on those doc page(s) don't fix them at this stage. 3. Hosts lose interest MOST of the time, regardless of their background, mostly because they gain nothing meaningful in the long run. (atlas credit does not count) All they do is out of personal respect for the ambassador and his cause (yes, we are spending out of our friendly relations for this, it has its own consequences). The host gets nothing in return but random requests to fix the baby. That's kinda boring and annoying. 4. Any other number you set as percentage for this and yet it will fail. A time will come for any ambassador that he is stuck with enough dead probes that you won't give him any more. I wonder how many of us have already got there. I believe Atlas needs a "failed/lost probes replacement" policy rather than an "X % live probes to get a new batch" policy. Regards, M. Tajbakhsh Lia Hestina wrote:
1. People don’t plug in their probes after getting one from an ambassador 2. Host experiences probe USB failure 3. Hosts lose interest sometimes 4. The RIPE NCC policy that probes needs to be at least 50% active
I strongly agree with the fourth point. I think it should be less about “% live probes” and more “% distributed” to account for the effort ambassadors put into distributing probes. Best, Jared On Apr 8, 2018, 15:23 -0400, M. Tajbakhsh <tajbakhsh@shirazu.ac.ir>, wrote:
Dear Lia,
Please let me correct our course of action a little bit:
1. People, even carefully selected & briefed tech guys, have their concerns about letting probes into their networks and the resources a probe may swallow. (we know that's negligible, they don't believe)
2. Not only memory stick, but probes themselves fail. That happens after about 2 years. Believe me, solutions on those doc page(s) don't fix them at this stage.
3. Hosts lose interest MOST of the time, regardless of their background, mostly because they gain nothing meaningful in the long run. (atlas credit does not count) All they do is out of personal respect for the ambassador and his cause (yes, we are spending out of our friendly relations for this, it has its own consequences). The host gets nothing in return but random requests to fix the baby. That's kinda boring and annoying.
4. Any other number you set as percentage for this and yet it will fail. A time will come for any ambassador that he is stuck with enough dead probes that you won't give him any more. I wonder how many of us have already got there.
I believe Atlas needs a "failed/lost probes replacement" policy rather than an "X % live probes to get a new batch" policy.
Regards, M. Tajbakhsh
Lia Hestina wrote:
1. People don’t plug in their probes after getting one from an ambassador 2. Host experiences probe USB failure 3. Hosts lose interest sometimes 4. The RIPE NCC policy that probes needs to be at least 50% active
IIRC that was the case from the beginning when I became an ambassador ( 2012?), they were supposed to send new probes to the ambassadors once a set percentage was distributed. The “percentage of live probes” was later amended. ons 25 apr. 2018 kl. 10:59 skrev Jared Smith <jared@jaredsmith.io>:
I strongly agree with the fourth point. I think it should be less about “% live probes” and more “% distributed” to account for the effort ambassadors put into distributing probes.
Best, Jared
On Apr 8, 2018, 15:23 -0400, M. Tajbakhsh <tajbakhsh@shirazu.ac.ir>, wrote:
Dear Lia,
Please let me correct our course of action a little bit:
1. People, even carefully selected & briefed tech guys, have their concerns about letting probes into their networks and the resources a probe may swallow. (we know that's negligible, they don't believe)
2. Not only memory stick, but probes themselves fail. That happens after about 2 years. Believe me, solutions on those doc page(s) don't fix them at this stage.
3. Hosts lose interest MOST of the time, regardless of their background, mostly because they gain nothing meaningful in the long run. (atlas credit does not count) All they do is out of personal respect for the ambassador and his cause (yes, we are spending out of our friendly relations for this, it has its own consequences). The host gets nothing in return but random requests to fix the baby. That's kinda boring and annoying.
4. Any other number you set as percentage for this and yet it will fail. A time will come for any ambassador that he is stuck with enough dead probes that you won't give him any more. I wonder how many of us have already got there.
I believe Atlas needs a "failed/lost probes replacement" policy rather than an "X % live probes to get a new batch" policy.
Regards, M. Tajbakhsh
Lia Hestina wrote:
1. People don’t plug in their probes after getting one from an ambassador 2. Host experiences probe USB failure 3. Hosts lose interest sometimes 4. The RIPE NCC policy that probes needs to be at least 50% active
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Hi All, Unless RIPE deploys an uptimerobot type of solution for all the users hosting its probes and notifies them on email and SMS on reachability issues – there won’t be any buy in by the end–users. If RIPE does that – there will be a clamour for devices and also they will be self maintained by the users since they are getting uptime reports instantly and they can use it to measure their links uptime. Right now we are depending on the goodwill of the ambassadors but it wears thin when we start bugging them to maintain the devices. The high failure rates don’t help either. Regards Durga Prasad +919849111010 From: RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors [mailto:ripe-atlas-ambassadors-bounces@ripe.net] On Behalf Of M. Tajbakhsh Sent: 09 April 2018 00:53 To: Lia Hestina Cc: RIPE Atlas ambassador mailing list Subject: {Spam?} Re: [RIPE Atlas Ambassadors] How to get people to actually plug in their probes? Dear Lia, Please let me correct our course of action a little bit: 1. People, even carefully selected & briefed tech guys, have their concerns about letting probes into their networks and the resources a probe may swallow. (we know that's negligible, they don't believe) 2. Not only memory stick, but probes themselves fail. That happens after about 2 years. Believe me, solutions on those doc page(s) don't fix them at this stage. 3. Hosts lose interest MOST of the time, regardless of their background, mostly because they gain nothing meaningful in the long run. (atlas credit does not count) All they do is out of personal respect for the ambassador and his cause (yes, we are spending out of our friendly relations for this, it has its own consequences). The host gets nothing in return but random requests to fix the baby. That's kinda boring and annoying. 4. Any other number you set as percentage for this and yet it will fail. A time will come for any ambassador that he is stuck with enough dead probes that you won't give him any more. I wonder how many of us have already got there. I believe Atlas needs a "failed/lost probes replacement" policy rather than an "X % live probes to get a new batch" policy. Regards, M. Tajbakhsh Lia Hestina wrote: 1. People don’t plug in their probes after getting one from an ambassador 2. Host experiences probe USB failure 3. Hosts lose interest sometimes 4. The RIPE NCC policy that probes needs to be at least 50% active --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
RIPE Atlas asked and I agreed to have probes delivered to me at in Vancouver so that different person could distribute them at a conference (that I was not attending). Nearly all of those are offline (and were never online), and they now count against me. I should never have agreed to that shipment, especially if they would now count against me: I have already got there (re 50% policy). My next good opportunity to distribute is at DebConf 2018 in Taiwan. On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 9:32 PM, DurgaPrasad - DatasoftComnet < dp@datasoftcomnet.com> wrote:
Hi All,
Unless RIPE deploys an uptimerobot type of solution for all the users hosting its probes and notifies them on email and SMS on reachability issues – there won’t be any buy in by the end–users.
If RIPE does that – there will be a clamour for devices and also they will be self maintained by the users since they are getting uptime reports instantly and they can use it to measure their links uptime.
Right now we are depending on the goodwill of the ambassadors but it wears thin when we start bugging them to maintain the devices. The high failure rates don’t help either.
Regards
Durga Prasad
+919849111010
*From:* RIPE-Atlas-Ambassadors [mailto:ripe-atlas- ambassadors-bounces@ripe.net] *On Behalf Of *M. Tajbakhsh *Sent:* 09 April 2018 00:53 *To:* Lia Hestina *Cc:* RIPE Atlas ambassador mailing list *Subject:* {Spam?} Re: [RIPE Atlas Ambassadors] How to get people to actually plug in their probes?
Dear Lia,
Please let me correct our course of action a little bit:
1. People, even carefully selected & briefed tech guys, have their concerns about letting probes into their networks and the resources a probe may swallow. (we know that's negligible, they don't believe)
2. Not only memory stick, but probes themselves fail. That happens after about 2 years. Believe me, solutions on those doc page(s) don't fix them at this stage.
3. Hosts lose interest MOST of the time, regardless of their background, mostly because they gain nothing meaningful in the long run. (atlas credit does not count) All they do is out of personal respect for the ambassador and his cause (yes, we are spending out of our friendly relations for this, it has its own consequences). The host gets nothing in return but random requests to fix the baby. That's kinda boring and annoying.
4. Any other number you set as percentage for this and yet it will fail. A time will come for any ambassador that he is stuck with enough dead probes that you won't give him any more. I wonder how many of us have already got there.
I believe Atlas needs a "failed/lost probes replacement" policy rather than an "X % live probes to get a new batch" policy.
Regards, M. Tajbakhsh
Lia Hestina wrote:
1. People don’t plug in their probes after getting one from an ambassador 2. Host experiences probe USB failure 3. Hosts lose interest sometimes 4. The RIPE NCC policy that probes needs to be at least 50% active
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I see other interesting topic. What is a balance in between: "Number of probes on-line" and "geographic and network dispersion" Let me to show a little example. As ambassador living in the central Europe, but traveling to relative exotic destinations I may have two different strategies: 1) Hand over probes within the central Europe where I have close links to my partners and can help them to keep probes on-line. 2) Act as a mule spreading probes in the exotic destinations to raise the coverage. But I can't support for probes physically placed to Solomon Islands or Namibia. And I know those people less than my colleagues in central Europe. Current policy prefers behavior (1), but I'm not sure if more probes within The Czech republic really contributes to the RIPE Atlas project. We can have probe in every village, but ... Michal
On 09/04/2018 06:32, DurgaPrasad - DatasoftComnet wrote:
Unless RIPE deploys an uptimerobot type of solution for all the users hosting its probes and notifies them on email and SMS on reachability issues – there won’t be any buy in by the end–users.
There is something - though I also discovered it by accident. If you look up the probe on the atlas.ripe.net portal, "General" tab, then scroll down, you get "notifications". You can set the email address and the threshold time. You also get a monthly report. Note that this isn't perfect - since my ISP's PPPoE session doesn't negotiate IPv6, there have been times where v6 connect was down but v4 was still up and the notification mechanism didn't flag that (and I wasn't home enough to detect through other means). As to the distribution discussion: While I see the NCC's need to keep the un-connected rate under control, I can't help but comment that this is all part of lessons learned. There have been several lessons, on "power supply reliability", on "USB-stick technology and durability", on "hand out at conferences", I think lessons have been learned: depending on circumstances it may a good idea to include a reliable power supply; running an encrypted filesystem doesn't help the wear leveling mechanism of an USB storage key, and inviting / discussing / vetting new potential hosts beforehand instead of randomly handing probes out helps to increase the deployment percentage (at the cost of making difficult places harder to reach). I'm hoping that the NCC finds a better way to work with this new knowledge than to hold this against the people trying to distribute probes. But it's not my project, if I'm unable to distribute then that's the way it's going to be. Geert Jan
Hello Philip and everyone! I too find it to be a problem, however, I started doing something which helped bit. Basically, I stop the "bulk distribution" of the probe at conferences. I do try best to carry them and give out when someone asks for it. But I stop the act of taking hardware in hand during a conference and asking - "who needs it?" Instead I try to get hosts via two methods: 1. During IP routing or IXP workshops, I always take a few mins to explain the way traceroute works and only shows the forward path, making everyone curious about return path. Next, I suggest them of Atlas project. That gets me folks who are genuinely interested to ask for the probe. 2. Whenever anyone requests me for sending probe via email or my blog post about it - I tell them upfront that while probes are free to host, there is cost involved in hardware which RIPE is bearing and there is cost involved in sending it locally which folks like us are bearing and thus we expect probes to be connected as soon as they (the requester) receives it and also that requester is willing to spend some reasonable time to troubleshoot if the device goes offline. For #2, I have seen 30-40% people not replying back and that actually helps. That ensures I am not sending a probe to someone who does not pick phone call, someone who misses an email and does not have time to do basic troubleshooting. Thanks. On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 5:18 AM, Philip Paeps <philip@trouble.is> wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Philip
-- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
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-- Anurag Bhatia anuragbhatia.com
On 2018-03-31 07:48:17 (+0800), Philip Paeps wrote:
I had a conversation with a new probe host who was wondering how many of the probes I hand out "walk off" never to be seen again.
Sadly, that's quite a lot of them in my case. I guess I need to find conferences with more reliable attendees?
People promise to plug them in but then they get distracted. Or they move and the probes end up in boxes.
How do other ambassadors twist their hosts' arms into actually plugging in probes? (And keeping them plugged in!)
Thanks for everyone's feedback. I'm glad I'm not the only one finding it difficult to get hosts to actually plug in their probes. Note that I wasn't actually thinking about the 50% quota, though now that it's been mentioned: on average fewer than 50% of the probes I've distributed are online. I like the idea of keeping in closer touch with hosts. Since I don't participate in so-called social media or the several cults of instant messaging, this is mostly a non-starter for me. I'll continue to chase my hosts by email though. I'm having some success convincing people who have not plugged in their probes for over a year to return them to me at the next conference. When I get probes back like that, I'll try to distribute them to more committed hosts. The openwrt application sounds interesting. Security may be a problem though. The nice thing about the Atlas Probe is that it's a self-contained "appliance": it generally just sits there and works. It also keeps itself updated. With openwrt, this may be more of a challenge. Philip -- Philip Paeps Senior Reality Engineer Ministry of Information
participants (16)
-
Anurag Bhatia -
Budiwijaya -
DurgaPrasad - DatasoftComnet -
Geert Jan de Groot -
Jared Smith -
Johan Bogg -
Jonathan Brewer -
JORDI PALET MARTINEZ -
Lia Hestina -
Luai E Hasnawi -
Luca Filipozzi -
M. Tajbakhsh -
Michal Krsek -
Mohamed Faye -
Philip Paeps -
r.deoliveiraschmidt＠utwente.nl