PlanetLab: Global Internet Laboratory Launches

from the will-it-really-be-useful? dept

A ton of press coverage today talking about PlanetLab, the new "testbed" for the internet. The idea, sponsored by a number of tech corporations and universities, is to build an internet within the internet for testing various internet applications. They think it could be useful in seeing how certain applications or uses impact (or are impacted by) real internet traffic. It can also be useful in seeing how different viruses and worms spread. While it sounds nice, I want to see how much use it gets beyond this initial publicity. One thing about the internet itself (and this is both good and bad) is that it basically acts as its own testbed.