RE: Traceroute versus other performance measurement

[Mark Borchers <mborchers () splitrock net>]

Presumably you're asking if it's a good tool to measure 
*available* bandwidth or lack thereof, i.e. congestion and 
its byproducts of packet loss and increased latency.

No, it isn't!

- Congestion resulting from asymmetric paths can be misinterpreted
through traceroute.

- Cases where ICMP performance with respect to the routers 
themselves is significantly lower than throughput of 
production traffic will often skew results.

Having said that, where traceroutes suggest a POSSIBLE problem
on my own network, I'd check further.  However, I would never
ask the operator of another network to troubleshoot solely on
the basis of traceroute output.
 
 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Paul Bradford [mailto:paul () adelphia net]
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 9:08 AM
> > To: nanog () merit edu
> > Subject: Traceroute versus other performance measurement
> >   
> > I need help with a reality/sanity check.   Traceroute is a 
> > good tool for
> > checking for routing type problems (loops).  Does anyone feel 
> > it's a good tool
> > to use for testing "bandwidth"....