NETI@home software gathers network performance data from endpoint systems.
Users of NETI@home are able to select a privacy level that will determine what types of data will be gathered, and what will not be reported. The software has been designed to be an unobtrusive system that runs quietly in the background with little or no intervention by the user and using few resources. It is written in C++ and uses the popular pcap API to sniff packets, as well as the zlib compression library.
NETI@home has been designed to aid researchers studying Internet performance by providing a wealth of end-to-end data that was previously unavailable. The software package includes the NETIMap application, written in Java, which encourages the use of NETI@home. When run in conjunction with NETI@home, the NETIMap application will display a geographical map of the world.
As Internet hosts are contacted, a dot is placed on that host's calculated coordinates. The coordinates are calculated using CAIDA's NetGeo database. NETI@home has been written and tested on the Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and Solaris operating systems, with testing for other operating systems to be completed soon.
In conclusion, NETI@home is an excellent software package for researchers who need access to end-to-end Internet performance data that was previously unavailable. It is easy to use, runs quietly in the background, and collects a wide range of data that can be analyzed to improve Internet performance. Its privacy settings also give users control over what data is collected and what is not.
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