1The following is a demonstration of the weblatency.d script.
2
3Here we run weblatency.d while a mozilla browser loads the 
4http://www.planetsolaris.org website. After the website was loaded, Ctrl-C
5was hit to print the following report,
6
7   # weblatency.d
8   Tracing... Hit Ctrl-C to end.
9   ^C
10   HOST                                     NUM
11   static.flickr.com                          1
12   images.pegasosppc.com                      1
13   www.planetsolaris.org                      5
14   blogs.sun.com                              7
15   
16   HOST                             AVGTIME(ms)
17   static.flickr.com                         65
18   blogs.sun.com                            285
19   images.pegasosppc.com                    491
20   www.planetsolaris.org                    757
21   
22   HOST                             MAXTIME(ms)
23   static.flickr.com                         65
24   images.pegasosppc.com                    491
25   blogs.sun.com                            962
26   www.planetsolaris.org                   3689
27
28This gives us an understanding on which hosts were responsible for the 
29time endured while loading the website. It turns out that requests to
30www.planetsolaris.org were the slowest, with a maximum time of 3.7 seconds
31(probably the first request, which incurred a DNS lookup).
32
33
34
35The following shows the same google lookup performed on a number of sites,
36
37   # weblatency.d
38   Tracing... Hit Ctrl-C to end.
39   ^C
40   HOST                                     NUM
41   www.google.com.au                          3
42   www.google.co.uk                           3
43   www.google.com                             3
44   www.google.co.nz                           3
45   
46   HOST                             AVGTIME(ms)
47   www.google.co.nz                         450
48   www.google.com.au                        502
49   www.google.com                           567
50   www.google.co.uk                         595
51   
52   HOST                             MAXTIME(ms)
53   www.google.co.nz                         544
54   www.google.com.au                        559
55   www.google.com                           744
56   www.google.co.uk                         763
57
58From the average time you would guess that I was running this from 
59New Zealand (the fastest), with times to the other hosts following suit
60(Australia, USA, UK). I was actually running this from Australia - it's
61interesting that the New Zealand server responded slightly faster.
62
63
64
65
66Now several websites are loaded as a larger demonstration,
67
68   # weblatency.d
69   Tracing... Hit Ctrl-C to end.
70   ^C
71   HOST                                     NUM
72   shop.abc.net.au                            1
73   static.technorati.com                      1
74   sunopensolaris.112.2o7.net                 1
75   www.theage.com.au                          1
76   ffxcam.smh.com.au                          1
77   sunglobal.112.2o7.net                      2
78   embed.technorati.com                       2
79   technorati.com                             2
80   fdimages.fairfax.com.au                    4
81   blogs.sun.com                              5
82   bugs.opensolaris.org                       7
83   www.abc.net.au                            34
84   www.smh.com.au                            51
85   
86   HOST                             AVGTIME(ms)
87   ffxcam.smh.com.au                          0
88   sunglobal.112.2o7.net                      0
89   www.abc.net.au                            56
90   www.theage.com.au                         64
91   shop.abc.net.au                           65
92   www.smh.com.au                            73
93   fdimages.fairfax.com.au                   88
94   blogs.sun.com                            130
95   bugs.opensolaris.org                     162
96   static.technorati.com                    350
97   technorati.com                           352
98   embed.technorati.com                     632
99   sunopensolaris.112.2o7.net               900
100   
101   HOST                             MAXTIME(ms)
102   ffxcam.smh.com.au                          0
103   sunglobal.112.2o7.net                      0
104   www.theage.com.au                         64
105   shop.abc.net.au                           65
106   fdimages.fairfax.com.au                  243
107   www.smh.com.au                           244
108   blogs.sun.com                            293
109   www.abc.net.au                           315
110   static.technorati.com                    350
111   technorati.com                           356
112   bugs.opensolaris.org                     560
113   sunopensolaris.112.2o7.net               900
114   embed.technorati.com                     973
115
116It's interesting that the most common host (www.smh.com.au, NUM == 51),
117responded with a fast AVGTIME (73 ms). The reason for this may be due to
118cacheing by my proxy server. Less common hosts such as embed.technorati.com
119were quite slow.
120
121
122
123The results from weblatency.d are interesting, but they don't point the
124finger at one single cause for website latency. The value here is the response
125time experienced by the client - which is a combination of many response 
126times (link speeds, proxy server, DNS server, web server).
127
128