Ping Unpredictability

This is an extension of the ping predictability metric developed by Kimberly Claffy of NLANR. We define:

ping success = 1 - # 100 data byte ping packets lost / total number of 100 data byte ping packets

ping data rate = 2000 bytes / (average response time of 10 consecutive 1000 data byte ping packets)

Then for a set of pings (e.g. all the pings to a given host in one day) we calculate:

r = average(ping data rate) / max(ping data rate)

and

s = average(ping success) / max(ping success)

Then we define ping unpredictability (u) as the distance of the coordinate (s,r) from (1,1) or:

u = sqrt((1-r)**2 + (1-s)**2)

An example of such a report is shown below:

One can also group hosts with some affinity together and average the unpredicatbility for those hosts for some period. This enables us to get an overall indicator of performance for the group of hosts. An example where we have averaged the ping responses for all the Esnet hosts, western N. American hosts, Eastern N. American hosts and International hosts is seen below: