Comcast said it has signed on to sponsor the first-ever hackathon for the RIPE Atlas Internet measurement network, a global network that supports more than 7,400 measurement devices/probes across 163 countries, Jason Livingood, Comcast’s VP of Internet services, announced recently in this blog post.
“The goals,” Livingood explained, “are to make new visualizations based on RIPE Atlas open Internet measurement data. Participants will work to create working prototypes which can then be used by the Internet community, and are encouraged to have varied international and interdisciplinary backgrounds.”
The hackathon, aimed at developers, designers, network operators and computer science students, is scheduled to run from March 27-30, 2015, in Amsterdam. “Hackathon participants will be challenged to use this open data to develop useful, creative and stunning visualisations for the benefit of the entire Internet community,” the organizer explains.
RIPE Atlas runs what’s billed as the largest “open” Internet measurement network, probing Internet connectivity and reach on a 24/7 basis, “providing an unprecedented understanding of the state of the Internet in real time,” Livingood explained.
According to RIPE Atlas, it has 7,496 probes connected to a network that is collecting 2,430 results per second.
Comcast’s network, he added, has installed 292 measurement probes and hosts two of the 15 U.S.-based RIPE Atlas “anchor” servers, which run more measurements than “regular” probes and provide regional targets for the other probes in the RIPE Atlas network.
Other sponsors include the Geant Project, Microsoft, Cable&Wireless Worldwide, ICANN, PCCW Global, OpenDNS, SIDN, and Verisign, among others.
