I don't think I'm missing it. I think I'm disagreeing with it in as nice
and nonconfrontational a way as I can given the crappy personality I have
to work from. Splitting hairs from here to infinity on what "network"
means and what the world wide web is departs rather widely from my mission
here, so I'm giving it short shrift. If you don't know how ping and
traceroute vary from data flows, I can't help much there either.
If you want to draw a line of demarcation between a network and its
performance, and a web server and its performance, you're free to do so. I
just probably won't buy into it.
On the actual concept that changing all the web servers will move the
numbers: It might. It might not. I would probably bet at this point that
there will be a lot of that going on among the non-moron crowd. I'm kind
of hoping for it anyway. And then we'll see if the numbers move. My sense
is that they will move some, and not as much as most seem to think. But
it's true it could go the other way and be dramatic. I'm open to whatever
results derive.
Jack Rickard
I don't think I'm missing it. I think I'm disagreeing with it in as nice
and nonconfrontational a way as I can given the crappy personality I have
apparently your definition of nonconfrontational includes calling people
morons. i think i will expand my definition of "editor" to include
clueless network engineer wannabes.
to work from. Splitting hairs from here to infinity on what "network"
means and what the world wide web is departs rather widely from my mission
here, so I'm giving it short shrift. If you don't know how ping and
traceroute vary from data flows, I can't help much there either.
since you obviously don't know a thing about how things like peering,
NAPs, IP routing, and all the other components of network engineering
work, i this it humorous.
If you want to draw a line of demarcation between a network and its
performance, and a web server and its performance, you're free to do so. I
just probably won't buy into it.
and we probably wouldn't either. but since that isn't what anyone is
doing, how is this relevant?
On the actual concept that changing all the web servers will move the
numbers: It might. It might not. I would probably bet at this point that
there will be a lot of that going on among the non-moron crowd. I'm kind
of hoping for it anyway. And then we'll see if the numbers move. My sense
is that they will move some, and not as much as most seem to think. But
it's true it could go the other way and be dramatic. I'm open to whatever
results derive.
so you are hoping backbone providers move their own home page web servers
in order to skew a severely limited and obviously bogus benchmark? if it
is as easy as that to change the results, don't you think perhaps there
is something radically wrong with your methodology? wouldn't that seem
to indicate this so-called benchmark isn't really testing what it
purports to?
if keystone just said "we are testing how long it takes to download a
random page from provider home pages" then there wouldn't furor.
instead, the claim is made that this somehow indicates the overall health
and performance of provider backbones. that is utter nonsense.
If you want to draw a line of demarcation between a network and its
performance, and a web server and its performance, you're free to do so. I
just probably won't buy into it.
Actually, one would think that if you are going to accurately portray
yourselves as doing a backbone examination, you'd do more than just check
web server performance. You'd analyze reachability of other major sites
from your site over a period of time (wouldn't a month be great), not just
getting to a specific ISP's webserver.
I would almost bet that if you try to get to UUNet's web server,
there are times when it's not very reachable, or at least a little
sluggish. But try going to one of the corporates sites they host. Much
better performance. I don't know the network design they have in place or
what the physical setup is, etc. and I'm pretty sure you don't either.
Therefore, by saying that you think your study servers a purpose, you
insult a lot of people out there who are easily mislead by your magazine.
There are enough marketing reports and half witted articles and reports
out their to confuse the average consumer. I'd think that you'd be
ashamed to be part of them, instead of providing a service that's closer
to providing what you intentionally planned to do.
How accurate an indicator is checking your oil to see if your
car's in good shape? Granted, whitout oil, the car will not run well at
all, but if you neglect the transmission, the brakes, etc. then you're
just sticking your head in the sand or lazy. I'd hope that if you're
going to provide this sort of information to anyone down to the average
person in a bookstore who picks up your magazine, that you'd at least do a
more thorough job. The fact that the people who build these networks and
do this for a living are saying your study is laughable should tell you
something.
Information is power, but being misinformed makes for bad things.
Joe Shaw - jshaw<at>insync.net.nospam
NetAdmin - Insync Internet Services
Learn more, and you will never starve.