The document discusses several visualization tools created by Claudio Squarcella to help understand and analyze Internet data. Caidagram uses geographic maps to visualize the locations of Internet measurement data collected from nodes like RIPE Atlas probes. VisualK monitors the performance of the K-root anycast network in real-time, showing traffic patterns between its instances. BGPlay animates routing graphs to visualize interdomain routing activity for a given prefix over time based on data from sources like RIPE RIS. The tools use technologies like JavaScript, SVG, and Google Web Toolkit to create interactive web applications for exploring the data.

1. Visualizing RIPE
data: Caidagram,
VisualK, BGPlay
Claudio Squarcella
Roma Tre University / RIPE NCC

2. Introduction
• CV – in less than 140 characters
– PhD student at Roma Tre University
– (twice) at the RIPE NCC for some months
– Visiting scholar at CAIDA in 2010
• What I do – in less than 140 characters
– Research on Graph Drawing and Information
Visualization
– Tools
and prototypes with special focus on Computer
Networks
Claudio Squarcella, January 2012
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3. Caidagram – geolocation of Internet data
• Many Internet measurements are based on a
high number of distributed nodes
– e.g. RIPE Atlas
• Geographical distribution often implies
geolocation of measurements
– e.g. RIPE Atlas users provide lat/lon
• Therefore geography is a good candidate
metaphor to understand collected data
Claudio Squarcella, January 2012
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4. Caidagram – area cartograms
http://v6asns.ripe.net/
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5. Caidagram – distance cartograms
http://www.caida.org/projects/ark/
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6. Caidagram – concentric distance map
http://dnsmon.ripe.net/
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7. VisualK – K-root as an anycast service
• based on 18 anycast instances in the world
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8. VisualK – monitoring K-root in real-time
• What?
– Queries per second (qps) served by each instance
– Traffic migration between instances
– Unexpected changes (e.g. sudden increase of qps)
• Why?
– Detection of failures and attacks
– Performance tuning
– Indirect analysis of the state of interdomain routing
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9. VisualK – migration graph
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10. VisualK – usual vs unusal patterns
• TODO add screenshot
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11. VisualK – alternative visualization
• Instances as adjacent countries (cartogram-like)
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12. BGPlay – visualizing interdomain routing
• BGPlay displays animated, interactive graphs of
the routing activity related to an Internet prefix
– The user specifies a prefix and a time interval of interest
– The tool shows the related “BGP history”
• Different instances for different data sets
– RIPE RIS data (http://www.ripe.net/ris)
– RouteViews (University of Oregon)
– RIPE INRDB (historical data)
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13. BGPlay – routing graph and timeline
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14. BGPlay – what happened in Egypt?
• Interdomain routing change after the massive
disconnection imposed by authorities
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15. Historical BGPlay – more data, less detail
http://sga.ripe.net/hbgplay/
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16. Technologies
• JavaScript web applications
– Vector images (SVG): Raphaël.js
– HTML5 canvas: Paper.js
– Google Web Toolkit
• Java applets
– Vintage stuff J
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17. What’s next?
• BGPlay++
– Integration with RIPEstat
– New features (e.g. visualize IPv4 vs IPv6)
• Atlas visualizations
– Geographical maps
– Flow, traceroute, etc
• …
Claudio Squarcella, January 2012
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18. Contact info
• Website: http://squarcella.com/
• Twitter: @hyperboreans
• Email: claudio.me (replace ‘a’ with ‘@’)
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19. Questions?