FAQ /// FixedOrbit

Frequently Asked Questions

    [: How is FixedOrbit data collected? :]

    The data provided within FixedOrbit comes from a wide variety of databases, both publicly available as well as private. At it's core though it's built around BGP, which is what determines how packets are routed around the Internet.

    [: How often is the FixedOrbit data updated? :]

    The current implementation does a complete rebuild of the database for updates; this doesn't affect the live database since the build process takes place on a secondary database. Currently the time for a full rebuild is almost one full day (approximately 20 hours), so updates happen at least once a week, although depending on feature enhancements and other projects, it may happen more frequently (but never less).
    In the next major update of FixedOrbit, we will be adding more realtime support which will initially mean that the live data on the site will be updated once every 24 hours. If you would like to participate in the beta (which involves submitting a BGP4 feed to us), please contact us via the contact page located here. When the beta is available, we will contact anyone who requested to participate, but not until then.

    [: How is the Knowdes Index calculated? :]

    The Knowdes Index is calculated by several factors, but at it's core it calculates the average number of networks it must traverse to get to all other point on the Internet. So, we take the particular Network, count the shortest number of hops until we get to a certain IP group, and then weight that number of hops by the number of IP addresses controlled at that particular end. In this way a network doesn't get penalized substantially because they aren't one hop away from 255 IP addresses in Antarctica.

    [: How is this different from Looking Glass? :]

    Good question - while both Looking Glass and FixedOrbit at their core use BGP to achieve their purposes, they have very different goals. Looking Glass is very network centric, and is used primarily to help identify routing problems as well as see how/what routing determinations were made. FixedOrbit, on the other hand, is meant to show relationships between different providers as well as overall information related to a particular network. In practice a good analogy would be that Looking Glass is more like a map of a particular city, showing all the streets within the city, while FixedOrbit is a map of the world or atlas showing all the interstate highways and roads between cities and countries.

    [: How can I use FixedOrbit data? :]

    That is a question better answered by you than us! Ultimately it depends on what you are trying to accomplish - if you're trying to find new peers, then you'll probably find Fixed Orbit invaluable. If you're trying to determine how beneficial a particular peering agreement will potentially be, then it won't help you nearly as much. Now, the two problems may sound very similar, but think again of the analogy made in the previous question - FixedOrbit could certainly help you pick the best city or country to meet your particular goals, but it won't help you pick the best street address to live at, for that good old fashion legwork still reigns supreme.

    [: How accurate is the country identification? :]

    More accurate than nothing at all - less accurate than asking the user! All kidding aside, while it should be 100% the reality is that networks don't update the information as often as they should, or don't add the information at all. It would probably be safe to say that the accuracy is greater than 90%, and for all practical purposes it's probably more than accurate enough.

    [: Why aren't all my peers showing up? :]

    In the current implementation of FixedOrbit, only announced (external/inbound) peering relationships are displayed - this means any internal/outbound-only peering agreements will not be visible. There are several reasons for this, but the reality is that for most people, the only type of peering agreement that will affect them substantially is one that is announced. The next version of FixedOrbit will also show internal peering relationships (which will be denoted as such), but until then take comfort that while all your internal peers don't show up here, neither do anyone elses.

    [: I've spotted something wrong, what do I do? :]

    The objective of FixedOrbit is to deploy a fully automated system, and as such it's always a challenge to get everything right - but we do try! If you see something that does not appear to be correct, then please do the following. First, is it a recent change? If so, remember that FixedOrbit is NOT realtime, so it may take up to a week for the change to be reflected on the website. Next, verify that the information in question is correct with the appropriate organization first! So if a particular IP address range is not being reported, double check your BGP feed to ensure it's properly in there - I know, you know it's correct, but please just double check; it takes far less work for you to track this down than it does us. If it's your company name, verify that Arin, Ripe, or whomever has the correct and current information. Finally, while you're doublechecking all of this you're likely to spot what the system used by mistake - this information is immensely helpful in solving whatever is wrong. Go to the contact page and report the bug, give as much detail as possible including what is wrong and what it should be correctly reporting.

    [: You're hacking my system!!!! :]

    No, we are not! Just because you typed an IP address or company name into Google and found a link here DOES NOT MEAN WE HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT! FixedOrbit literally lists every network company in the entire world, and every IP address range on the Internet... So in reality if you know what you're doing you can easily used FixedOrbit to track down not only the network responsible, but also their relationship with other networks as well as how many IP's they control.

    [: What's the funniest thing you've been asked? :]

    Well, it wasn't exactly a question, but when FixedOrbit was in it's public beta this FAQ page was just a list of the questions people asked (or I thought should be covered) but I hadn't filled in the answers yet. A student from Dartmouth sent an email which started out with the following; "I checked your FAQ, but apparently these are only frequently ASKED questions, not ANSWERED questions." :)