Hey David,
The idea is to ascertain where an issue may lie. I understand the network will most likely heal its' self, however it's still nice to know where the issue lies. I'm guessing customers connect directly to the erx's, thus if the erxcrash's and goes down, customer falling off that node will be effected.
The idea is a pretty map with colors indicating packet loss. Let's just see what happens when the next big network fault happens.
What will happen, is that individuals responsible for networks will troubleshoot _their own networks_ and establish who _they_ can communicate with. They'll then liase with those with whom they cannot connect with (or through) in the normal fashion. Not only does this already 'work' but it doesn't rely on third-hand and questionably-out-of-date information found on a website that might not even be accessible in said 'big network fault'. Further, this uses existing business relationships - eg, a provider talks to its upstream, who talks to its upstream and various downstreams, etc etc. Where X routes to Z via Y then B then C, theres little point in X and Z talking to eachother and adding to the noise when what they should both be talking to their upstreams (Y and C) who will both then be liasing with B as appropriate. ? I dont disagree that 'power users' will find the info useful - I question the value of giving these people more information than is useful to them. An ISP guages outage impact on reports that it receives from end users. End user should simply be reporting the symptoms to their helpdesk, and the ISP employees do the faultfinding. Not the customers... Mark.