The organization
WiscNet provides Internet services and technology for the State of Wisconsin. A membership cooperative serving over 500 regional education, research, and government organizations, WiscNet links classrooms, libraries, hospitals, and government agencies across Wisconsin to one another and the world beyond.
The problem
WiscNet's goal was to provide more technical support more efficiently. The internet is a big, often misunderstood space: a request originates at a workstation, traverses a member's LAN, the WiscNet network, and often four or more other ISPs before reaching its destination. End users see the internet as either "working" or "broken" and either way they see WiscNet as responsible.
When a member contacted WiscNet with a problem report, technicians often asked them to run unfamiliar command-line utilities that produced output they could not interpret. The result was lengthy, frustrating support calls.
The solution
WiscNet built the WiscNet ToolBox, a free downloadable toolkit available to every member. Its flagship tool is VisualRoute, which automatically determines precisely when, where, and how data is flowing between two points on the internet.
Using VisualRoute, WiscNet members can view traceroute, ping, and whois results in an easy-to-read table, and see the path of an internet connection plotted on a world map. The map helps users follow the actual path of a connection and is often used to identify network intruders and security risks.
The results
The ToolBox and VisualRoute have enabled WiscNet to provide more technical support more efficiently. The beauty of VisualRoute is that it actually shows you the internet. Previously, our staff would spend a considerable amount of time on a call and often find the problem was local to the member's site or with another provider. Being able to pinpoint and communicate that information right away saves considerable time.
Kika Barr, WiscNet Technical Support Manager
Members use VisualRoute to detect problems within their own networks and to trace suspicious online activity. When they cannot interpret a result, they can save it as an image or HTML file and email it to WiscNet for further analysis.
VisualRoute and the ToolBox have also become a teaching tool. Member organizations use the live traceroute output in classrooms to help students and teachers understand how the internet actually works.