RIPE Atlas LatencyMON rebuilt with modern stack

RIPE NCC has released a ground-up rewrite of LatencyMON, the latency visualization tool within its RIPE Atlas measurement platform. The update replaces legacy libraries with a modern codebase, enhancing security, performance, and usability while preserving the tool’s core functionality for network operators and researchers.

LatencyMON aggregates and visualizes latency data from RIPE Atlas probes, allowing users to compare round-trip times across groups of probes rather than sifting through individual charts. The tool supports measurements such as ping, traceroute, DNS, TLS, and HTTP, displaying latency trends over time with options to highlight packet loss, spikes, or slow drifts. Its ability to group probes by country or distance from a target simplifies analysis of large datasets, making it a staple for network diagnostics.

What’s new

The rebuild migrates LatencyMON from jQuery, RequireJS, and Backbone to Vue 3 and Quasar, the same framework used for the broader RIPE Atlas interface. This shift improves maintainability and security while ensuring consistency with other RIPE NCC tools. The interface has been streamlined, with better responsiveness on smaller screens and fewer visual distractions.

Key additions include a toggle to display only minimum latency lines, eliminating clutter when users focus on baseline performance. The tool now loads with the full aggregated dataset visible by default, removing the need to manually adjust time windows. For periods outside pre-computed aggregation ranges, LatencyMON can fetch raw, non-aggregated samples—capped at 10,000 to maintain performance—expanding the scope of analyzable data.

Packet loss visualization has been refined, with opacity scaling to emphasize areas of heavier loss. Grouping options now include distance from the target, useful for distinguishing nearby probes from distant ones. Users can also split groups into individual probe charts with a single click, pinpointing outliers more efficiently. When comparing IPv4 and IPv6 measurements, LatencyMON automatically aligns the two for side-by-side analysis.

Sharing and embedding features have been enhanced. A fullscreen mode with zoom controls simplifies presentations, while an embed option captures the tool’s current state for external use. Direct links to underlying measurement IDs bridge the gap between visualization and raw data. LatencyMON is now accessible from DNS, TLS, and HTTP measurement results within RIPE Atlas, not just ping and traceroute, broadening its utility.

Why it matters

LatencyMON’s modernization addresses long-standing limitations in the original tool, which had become difficult to maintain due to its aging codebase. The migration to Vue 3 and Quasar aligns it with RIPE NCC’s current development practices, reducing technical debt and enabling future updates. For network professionals, the improvements translate to faster, more flexible analysis of latency data, particularly for newer measurement types like DNS and TLS.

The tool’s expanded integration with RIPE Atlas means users can now access latency visualizations from a wider range of measurement results with a single click. This streamlines workflows for troubleshooting or monitoring network performance, especially in scenarios involving multiple protocols. The ability to compare IPv4 and IPv6 latency directly is particularly valuable for operators assessing dual-stack deployments.

What to watch

RIPE NCC has invited user feedback on the rebuilt LatencyMON, particularly for DNS, TLS, and HTTP measurements, which are newly supported in this version. Future updates may address current limitations, such as the 10,000-sample cap on raw data retrieval. As RIPE Atlas continues to evolve, LatencyMON’s tighter integration with the platform suggests it will play a larger role in network diagnostics and research.