Re: Network Emulation Trace Developer Tools Proposal: PoC Info

Looks interesting.  I could see WebPageTest supporting a trace profile to
use during testing - would just need to figure out how to wire it into
netem.  The more interesting parts would be to better emulate the ramps for
cellular connectivity.

That said, I'm not sure web developers would be able to do much with it.
They tend to have enough of a problem optimizing for a few fixed profiles
and adding variability to that may not result in useful signal for them to
optimize towards (at least for the typical case of web page loads).  A
video stream or protocol/congestion control development are much better
fits for being able to adapt to variable conditions quickly.

I'm happy to chat more, otherwise I'll keep an eye on the project and see
if there's anything I can expose in WebPageTest to help.

On Tue, Mar 9, 2021 at 10:28 AM Yoav Weiss <yoavweiss@google.com> wrote:

> Hey folks,
>
> To continue the conversation from today's meeting
> <https://www.w3.org/2021/03/09-web-networks-minutes.html>, I think it
> might be interesting for y'all to talk to +Patrick Meenan
> <pmeenan@webpagetest.org> and +Tim Kadlec <tim@timkadlec.com> who work on
> webpagetest.org
>
> Here's the scenario where I imagine network tracing to be extremely
> interesting:
>
>    - Folks around the world capturing real-life network conditions (e.g.
>    "mid-day in Bangalore", "rural area in US", "London Tube", etc)
>    - WPT has a collection of those traces that developers can
>    automatically apply when testing their site's performance
>    - Developers (automatically) test their site loading under those
>    conditions, and (hopefully) find performance bottlenecks that are currently
>    invisible
>
> What do y'all think?
>
> Cheers,
> Yoav
>
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 11:32 AM Divakaran, Sudeep <
> sudeep.divakaran@intel.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Chairs and all in Web Perf WG,
>>
>>
>>
>> I am Co-Chair of the W3C Web & Networks IG. At TPAC 2020 WG meeting,
>> during the Network Diagnostics API proposal discussion, I brought up a
>> couple of topics which may be of interest in this WG. One amongst them was
>> regarding a proposal we received to extend network Developer tools to
>> emulate time-variant network conditions to assist web app testing (e.g.
>> either emulating real world trace or user defined traces).
>>
>>
>>
>> Background:
>>
>> I would like to follow up from where we left. The Web Performance WG
>> Chairs expressed interest and asked us to share any links, when available.
>>
>> Pls. refer to minutes <
>> https://w3c.github.io/web-performance/meetings/2020/2020-10-TPAC/index.html#h.8gfnc7p4nih
>> >
>>
>> I quote - “Yoav: Network trace idea sounds interesting in context of
>> synthetic testing, but possibly orthogonal to this. If you could share
>> links that'd be great.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Info:
>>
>> The IG Members proposing this tool has made a simple Proof-of-concept,
>> which also integrates into Browser Developer Tools (it’s a very basic
>> implementation with just one parameter viz., DL bandwidth).
>>
>> For more details, take a look at the demo video available on TPAC 2020
>> website @  <https://www.w3.org/2020/10/TPAC/wn-lpp.html>
>>
>> Source codes and other info. are available on Github at  <
>> https://github.com/intel/lpp-network-trace>
>>
>>
>>
>> Upcoming Event:
>>
>> We plan to have the team make a presentation in our upcoming Web &
>> Networks IG meeting in early March ’21 (date yet to be finalised). We can
>> share the Webex details, if anyone would like join us. Kindly let me know.
>> I can work with the W3C Staff to forward the Webex Details, once the dates
>> are finalised.
>>
>>
>>
>> Request:
>>
>> The team is seeking inputs and W3C engagement from interested members to
>> add more features (emulate time variant latency, UL BW, etc), define trace
>> format, Network Developer Tools UI, etc.
>>
>> Our Interest Group is looking for feedback about this tool proposal and
>> whether it fits in the broader scheme of things for Browsers. We would be
>> happy to answer any queries using this email thread.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Sudeep
>>
>> Co-Chair, Web & Networks IG
>>
>> (sent on behalf of IG WNIG Co-Chairs & W3C Staff in CC)
>>
>>
>>
>