The optical splitters are small and easy to insert within seconds, and, due to their size, easy to house within communication equipment. The primary interface we use for data collection right now is OC3, based on FORE PCA-200E cards. Later in the year we expect a different type of OC12 monitor cards based on work by Ian Graham and his team at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. In addition we also expect two pairs of DS3 cards from Ian Graham, for creating DS3mon machines. While initially collecting data every hour on the OC3mon machines, then doing some analysis of the data, and only sending results to the central servers, we have started to collect regular packet traces instead, and making sanitized versions available, as well as some analysis results.
Traces are available via web and ftp access.
Analysis results are available in the Datacube . This work is intended to complement the measurements taken by MCI within the vBNS infrastructure. Currently round trip times, topology and loss are being measured. On demand throughput tests will be added in the next quarter. There are daily graphs for every day since measurement began.