M-lab is an open source platform for to deploy internet measurement tools. Its goal is to develop some applications which could help the normal internet user to know information about their broadband connections. Its help us to know which part of the system has a problem whether it’s the problem with the application or the internet connection or something else.
It provides applications of two types:
Tools for normal internet users: Tools that can test the broadband connections performance by sending requests to the server, communicating with the server. These tools are built upon M-lab distributed server platform. It provides tools like Network Diagnostic Tool, Glasonet (tells whether bittorent ports are open or not), Network path and application diagnosis (tells about common problems) currently and tools in mere future are Diffprobe (tells whether ISP's prioritizing of packets), Nano (Tells about ISP's performance).
Platform for Researchers: M-lab also provides assistance to the researchers and enthusiasts in the Networking domain by providing distributed servers and good connectivity for research use. Source of server side tools are opened up and are allowed to be changed to meet the requirements. M-lab's data will be made publicly available and researchers currently have limited set of resources and various companies are coming forward to fund it.
Currently there are servers at many places in US and more will be setup to test new applications which help normal internet users know the transparency of their broadband connections and want to provide healthy and robust network.
Fact: M-lab was founded by Open Technology Institute, Google Inc., PlanetLab Consortium.
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