Place: 4274 Chamberlin Hall (refreshments will be served)
Speaker: Paul Barford, UW Department of Computer Sciences
Abstract: The availability of accurate and timely maps of the Internet would be a compelling starting point for diverse research topics such as assessing infrastructure vulnerabilities, understanding routing behavior, and analyzing application performance. However, despite the many and varied efforts over the years, there remains no central repository of accurate Internet maps. In this talk, I will describe the challenges in assembling maps of Internet topology based on standard data sources. I will also describes Internet Atlas, a repository and visualization portal of the physical interconnection structure of the Internet that has been under construction at the University of Wisconsin for four years. Atlas currently contains PoP/colo and link location data for over 1K networks (including all tier 1 providers) around the world. The Atlas repository was the starting point for our recent study of Internet long haul infrastructure. I will describe key results from that study on deployment characteristics and risks in US long haul infrastructure, and opportunities to improve performance and robustness.