Dear Task Force, Based on feedback previously provided, below you will find the final outline of our plans for future direction of the TTM network. We appreciate you taking the time to contribute to this, and encourage any final comments either before or during our meeting next week. Key elements of this plan, including some implementation details and interface mockups, will be presented during the TT-WG on Thursday 25th October during RIPE55. Vision ~~~~~~ Our goal is to expand and maintain the TTM network, increasing the value of the service to the community at large and to the owners of the probes. This will be achieved by making improvements in the following areas: - Enhancing the measurement architecture - Enhancing the TTM network architecture - Improving alarms and reporting - Improving the business model These changes will require a radical rethink in probe and measurement architecture, resulting in new structures for the probes themselves, and the tests they carry out. TTM network infrastructure ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The TTM network is the foundation of the TTM and associated services. Therefore, these services strongly depend on reliability and coverage of the network. In particular it is essential that there are many active probes at interesting locations, that probes are well maintained, and that coverage can be further increased by deploying simpler devices. Let's consider these goals separately. 1. For the services that the TTM provides, it is essential that there are enough active probes at interesting locations. At present, we are relatively limited by the availability, and geography,of those willing to sponsor probes, and as a result, some rather dense and unhelpful clustering has occurred. A possible solution to mitigate this problem is to install a number of probes at important locations for free. The NCC will fund the hardware and service contract, while the host will support the probe with power, connectivity and remote-hands. Rough criteria for hosting a box: - Major AS or IX - Only one free box per AS – if a site wants more, they have to pay - Commitment from the site to operate the box for a minimum 3 year period - Selection will be a “beauty contest”, and at the discretion of the NCC 2. However this alone will not ensure sustained growth of the network. This needs to be addressed by increasing the number of sponsored probes and ensuring that those probes are well maintained and upgraded when necessary. Therefore It is important to make the TTM services attractive to sponsors of the TTM probes to increase stability and steady growth of the network. Several incentives can be provided: - Allow the sponsor to define their own measurement mesh and specific routine measurements (level of detail and frequency). Management of gathered data will be the responsibility of the sponsor. - Support the sponsor in creating dynamic meshes to monitor their own applications and services, providing a global picture of availability. These enhancements will operate in unison with the existing full-meshed measurements which we are committed to supporting on an ongoing basis. 3. To further expand the network in the areas where support and technical expertise are limited (e.g. small/residential customers), a probe itself should be as lightweight as possible (no GPS, embedded systems). The CBM proposal fits well in this category. This setup doesn't allow one-way measurements, although an aggregated view from a cluster of such lightweight probes can enhance the TTM and add-on services. TTM Measurements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Near real-time measurement of application services The TTM network will continue to act as a measurement platform for critical Internet public service and infrastracture applications (e.g. root and ccTLD DNS monitoring and of multicast performance). These independent tests are of benefit to the service administrators, the end users, and to the hosts of TTM probes. We will improve this service by - Considering measuring new applications as the need arises - Making reporting clearer (see below) - Enhancing alarm functionality (see below) - Implementing the CBM proposal (see infrastructure section) 2. Global one-way measurement platform The TTM network will continue its one-way measurements of the delay/jitter/loss between the distributed probes. These independent tests are of benefit to the hosts of the TTM probes, to the broader community, and to specific interested organisations who rely on neutral views (e.g. regulators and governments). We will improve this service by - Introducing custom measurement meshes (see infrastructure section) - Introducing support for OWAMP. This will allow the TTM network to interact with other compatible networks, and will facilitate measurements on demand (subject to access restrictions) - Setting up data quality checks to ensure the sanity of presented data - Making reporting clearer (see below) - Enhancing alarm functionality (see below) 3. General purpose distributed measurement platform for ad-hoc experiments The TTM network will be developed to enable interested parties (e.g. CAIDA) to conduct a variety of time-limited, global, local, or mid-range experiments (for example the k-root anycast studies). An outcome will typically be an analytical report that will be open to the community. In addition to this, the NCC will provide various ad-hoc modules which all test box hosts may use to carry out bespoke tests of interest to them - the initial implementation of this will cover private application testing. Reporting ~~~~~~~~~ We consider the current reports to be complex and overwhelming. We will simplify the presentation of results to include fewer pre-generated plots, and shift our focus to the identification of trends and changes in gathered data. We will continue to support tools to generate plots on demand, and raw data will continue to be available for analysis. DQM will be used to verify data sanity. In addition to this, we are investigating ways to merge TTM data with that from other services - such as RIS - combining data from these powerful platforms to display broader and more representative pictures of Internet behaviour in near real-time. Alarms ~~~~~~ We consider the current alarm functionality to be complex and overwhelming. This will be re-engineered to provide more powerful network and application alarms. We will enable users to run a variety of NCC defined tests, limited by number, frequency and longevity, so as to ensure that these tests do not impact public TTM network operation. As with reporting, we will simplify presentation of generated alarms to make them clearer. Admin and pricing model ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As a result of feedback from existing TTM hosts, and others interested in participating, we intend to move to a three year model with two payment options and the possibility to extend by up to two years. Option 1 will be three recurring annual payments of €1800, which will include all hardward, setup and service costs. Option 2 will be one single up front payment of €5000, which will include all hardware, setup and service fees for three years, and includes an advance payment discount. Towards the end of year three, hosts will be given the opportunity to extend their service contract by up to two years at the prevailing annual fee at that time (currently €1000). Hosts extending for just 1 year will be given the option to extend for one further year. All contracts will expire after five years. We recommend entering into a new contract with new hardware at this point. However, if your hardware continues to function reliably, you may opt to participate without a contract. In such cases you will no longer receive software updates, general support, or access to some advanced features of your testbox software. We appreciate the time and effort expended by existing hosts and will obviously ensure a fair and favourable transition for all. -- Mark Dranse Information Services Manager RIPE NCC