Subject: Internet Measurement Research Group

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 07:24:02 -0400

A new IRTF research group, IMRG (Internet Measurement Research Group), has
begun, with the appended charter.  Use [email-masked] to subscribe
to the mailing list.  See http://imrg.grc.nasa.gov/imrg/ for further
information.

- Vern Paxson  (IRTF chair)

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There is considerable network measurement work being conducted within the
Internet community -- both in standards bodies (e.g., IETF IPPM WG) and
in various research labs. The goal of the Internet Measurement Research
Group (IMRG) is to provide a venue to: (1) provide a forum for discussion
of Internet measurement research issues, (2) aid in the coordination of
various research projects, (3) assess new measurement techniques, and (4)
increase interactions between operators, developers of measurement tools
and techniques, and researchers who analyze and model Internet dynamics.
The scope includes all kinds of network measurement (active techniques,
passive monitoring, end-point probing, in-network methods, network layer,
transport layer, application layer, etc.). The RG will both attempt to
design new measurement techniques and analyze measurements of the network
taken. The following represent examples of the types of projects that the
RG might undertake:

      Tackle outstanding issues dealing with measurement infrastructures
      (e.g., Surveyor, NIMI), such as: scalability of meshes, security of
      measurement tools in the mesh, access control, resource control,
      scheduling issues.

      Tackle the often thorny issue of sharing measurement data within the
      community. The RG could define a systematic way for storing measurements
      and any needed meta-data that should be kept with the measurements.
      In addition, the RG could foster research into systems for remote
      requests for measurement, analysis, and anonymization, facilitating
      a formed of reduced access to data that cannot be directly released.

      Provide a venue for assessing new measurement techniques, and a forum
      for sharing preliminary findings in rough form, to encourage further
      work and collaboration.

      Provide a venue for developing models based on network measurements,
      helping to better understand network dynamics and aiding researchers
      attempting to conduct useful simulations of the network.

      Foster communication between the research and operations communities.
      For example, operators could provide feedback to researchers as to
      what sorts of network properties/characteristics they would like to
      see measured, and how well current techniques work.

      Catalog core problems that need to be addressed. Even if the RG is
      not actively working on these problems, having a "wish list" of
      outstanding problems may foster work in these areas.

Coordination - the RG will provide: 

      A venue for exploring measurement techniques before they are ready
      to be standardized by the IETF (in IPPM, for instance).

      A venue for discussing real world experience with IETF defined metrics
      and measurement techniques.

      A "measurement arm" to various IETF working groups to gain a better
      understanding of how protocols work in the wild (e.g., which HTTP
      capabilities are being implemented or the performance of the global
      DNS system).