Introducing MSAK (Measurement Swiss-Army Knife)
Since its inception, M-Lab’s flagship bulk transport capacity (BTC) measurement protocol, NDT, has always been using a single TCP stream. While this allowed us to get detailed diagnostic data about the user’s connection, over time many have expressed concerns about the ability of the single-stream approach to also effectively fill the link and double as a measurement of link capacity.
Introducing Data Transfer Limits to NDT
Consumer Internet speeds increasing to 1Gbps and beyond pose a scaling challenge to servers engaged in measuring global Internet quality, as every bit represents physical infrastructure and energy costs to measure that information. Maintainers of Measurement Lab are investigating options to limit the amount of data transferred by an NDT test that will reduce resource strain while maintaining quality of Internet measurement and sustain user experience.