Path latency doesn't change much, you can determine
this with very few probes.
. . . .
Much like web spidering, some simple common sense can help keep probes
from becoming a hassle:
. . . .
* Consider what is the smallest unit of "distinct network topology" you
need to map. A very reasonable number would be a /24.
We have been studying these issues as part
of the IDMaps project and have two reports
quantifying our results. If interested,
you can download our papers from:
http://idmaps.eecs.umich.edu/papers/rtt.ps.gz
http://idmaps.eecs.umich.edu/papers/ap.pdf
Cheers,
Amgad