Traveling Through a Network

    In addition to Google.com, I chose to ping and traceroute CentralBank.ie (Ireland) and WordlStandards.eu (Europe).

Ping Activity

    For Google, there were four packets sent as well as four packets received, none were lost. Response speed ranged from 43 to 107 milliseconds with the average being 63 milliseconds. Central Bank also had both four packets sent and received with none lost. Response speed for this one ranged from 49 to 58 milliseconds with the average being 53 milliseconds. Lastly, the ping on WorldStandards also resulted in four packets both sent and received with no loss. Response speed for World Standards ranged from 116 to 119 milliseconds with the average being 117 milliseconds.

Traceroute Activity

    None of the sites failed before reaching their destinations, but there was a lot of time outs, especially with the foreign sites. With Google, the traceroute travelled through 11 routers with two timing out before reaching its destination. For the Central Bank of Ireland, there were also 11 routers, but this time there were five time outs and one heavy slow down on the 10th router. World Standards used the most routers with 15, and also had five time outs like the Ireland site. Slow-down on the World Standards site were not as bad as the one on the Central Bank site.

Traveling Through a Network Reflection

    The ping command is used to troubleshoot a network to test connectivity and speed of the internet. It will tell you if your device is communicating clearly with the destination IP and all information packets are being transferred as they should. Generally, the further away the destination (foreign sites), the longer the response time. This didn't quite hold true on my tested sites though, as Google was actually slower to ping than the Central Bank of Ireland. World Standards took the longest to ping, but also showed that it was being sent through more routers with 15 over the other two sites' 11 each.

    Firewalls can cause a failed ping as they don't react when packets are sent. Another reason for a ping request to time out is lack of internet access by your computer or the destination host is down.

    "A traceroute can help determine if the error is an issue related to the network itself, such as Domain Name Server (DNS) resolution issue, packet loss, or a network latency, or possibly if the error is caused by the server itself." (dotcom-monitor, n.d.) Traceroute can tell you where you should start your troubleshooting, whether it's at your own computer or the destination. You may need to reboot your own system or contact a website administrator to resolve the issue.


References:
dotcom-monitor (n.d.). Traceroute Errors and Results – How to Troubleshoot. https://www.dotcom-monitor.com/wiki/knowledge-base/traceroute-errors-how-to-troubleshoot/Links to an external site.

Prasasti, P. (2023, June 1). Traceroute Command: How to Use and Interpret It. Hostinger Tutorials. https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/traceroute-commandLinks to an external site.

Vahid, F., & Lysecky, S. (2019). Computing technology for all. zyBooks.