NEWS / EVENTS
Gomez end-user monitoring network
hits 40,000 nodes
By Dan Golding
Gomez has built a very interesting infrastructure of monitoring nodes with the idea of testing customer experience from the edge of the Internet, inward. That's a much better methodology than pinging or even scripting from the Internet backbone, where performance is likely to be just fine. Gomez's use of simulated Web browsers on those 40,000 testing nodes is also important ö while developers would like to think that Web sites and application will behave the same way regardless of location and network condition, we all know that is simply untrue. Weird combinations of browsers, broadband networks, and Internet conditions will cause strange corner cases and generate very difficult to solve (and thus, expensive) support calls.
Basically what this boils down to is that Gomez pays end users to install its software, which is a hermetically sealed package of testing and browser simulation software that runs in the background and tests Gomez' customers. Gomez signs on end users based on bandwidth and geography, balancing out its mix, and pays up to $45 per month, depending on how much local processor time gets used. It also pays referral fees when necessary to recruit new members into the herd. If this sounds like a hacker 'darknet,' well, that's what it is, but with the full permission of the end users and the target websites, rather than hijacked hosts destroying victim destinations.
Gomez's challenge is getting the word out on this, both to potential end-user testers, as well as to their own potential customers, and making the entire deal work economically. There are also challenges from hackers attempting to game the system and defraud Gomez, but T1R feels that's a manageable risk.
For more information on Tier 1 Research visit their website at www.t1r.com.
