🚀 go-pugleaf

[Preface to net.gods: this is not meant as a criticism, merely an
 observation on the deviation between theory and reality.]

There are a large number of USENET sites on the west coast, including
several "backbone" sites.  However, there doesn't seem to be a lot
of north/south traffic on the net, particularly to Southern California.
Instead, news seems to propagate east/west several times before it
reaches here.  This has been noted many times previously by others.

The path of the enclosed article (which may still be on your system) 
is perhaps exaggerated, but not really atypical.   By my calculations, 
it took nearly 6 days, visited the east coast twice (mdivax1 is near 
Vancouver, B.C.) and went through 25 sites before coming to San Diego via 
the "unofficial" decvax->ittatc->dcdwest->sdcsvax link (which, although 
not a "backbone" link, carries about 85% of the traffic into San Diego)

    Path: sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittatc!decvax!bellcore!petrus!sabre!zeta!epsilon!gamma!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!bullwinkle!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!mdivax1!haft
    From: haft@mdivax1.UUCP (haft)
    Newsgroups: net.wanted,net.decus,net.unix
    Subject: NFS and ULTRIX
    Message-ID: <201@mdivax1.UUCP>
    Date: 25 Apr 86 16:57:06 GMT
    Date-Received: 1 May 86 00:38:25 GMT
    Organization: Mobile Data International Inc., Rich., B.C., Canada
    Lines: 14

Some other paths:
    Path: pyramid!pesnta!hplabs!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!bullwinkle!uw-beaver!ubc-vision!mdivax1!haft
    Date-Received: 30 Apr 86 10:24:41 GMT

    Path: bonnie!clyde!watmath!utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!mdivax1!haft
    Date-Received: 1 May 86 01:37:28 GMT

I would note that the actual path bares only slight resemblance to
the nominal backbone links.  In particular, 
	uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs
	uw-beaver!tektronix!decvax
	ubc-vision!alberta!ihnp4
each had 4 days or so and still couldn't beat a more circuitous route.  

(Just for fun, I've shown the west coast sites in upper case.)

                              >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>(1 site)>>>>>>>V
                              ^            May 1                         V
 cbosgd-----------------------^-----------clyde<<<<<<<<<watmath<<<<<<<<utzoo
   | >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>^>>>>>>>>>    |                            :
   | ^                        ^        >    |                            :
 ihnp4-------alberta------UBC-VISION   V   burl                          :
   ^ \                Apr 25^ V        V    |  >>>>>(5 sites)>>>>V       :
   ^ cuae2              <<<UW-BEAVER   >>>ulysses-------------bellcore   :
   ^                    V     |                                  V       :
   ^                    V TEKTRONIX---------------------------decvax---linus
   ^                    V     |                                /V|       | 
 QANTEL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>V>>>  | OLIVEB------GLACIER------DECWRL V|       |
   ^                    V   > | /                               V|       |
   ^  kddlab------------V---HPLABS-------SDCRDCF                V|       |
   ^    |          (2 sites)  : Apr 30      |                   V|       |
   ^    |               V     :          SDCSVAX<<<<<<(2 sites)<<|       |
   ^    |               V    hao            | May 1              |       |
   ^    |               V     :          drillsys                |       |
   ^    |               >>>>V :             |                    |       |
   ^  mcvax.................seismo........gatech-----akgua-----mcnc----philabs
   ^                         < \                                         |
LLL-LCC<<<<<LLL-CRG<<<<<<<<<<   \--------------------------------------cmcl2

Sure, this shows that there's enough redundancy in the net that news
will propagate even when several backbone links are out.  But it also
suggests that some of these links are nominal at best.  Also, I suspect
there should be more efficient ways of moving the news along the west 
coast rather that sending it trans-continent 4 times.

(PS: I would appreciate any date stamps and paths from other backbones).
-- 
	Joel West	 	(619) 457-9681
	CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA  92037
	{cbosgd, ihnp4, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel
	joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA