DIMES: Let the Internet Measure Itself

Today's Internet maps, which are all collected from a small number of vantage points, are falling short of being accurate. We suggest here a paradigm shift for this task. DIMES is a distributed measurement infrastructure for the Internet that is based on the deployment of thousands of light weight measurement agents around the globe. We describe the rationale behind DIMES deployment, discuss its design trade-offs and algorithmic challenges, and analyze the structure of the Internet as it seen with DIMES.