The extraordinary network challenges presented by high energy nuclear and p
article physics experiments has created a need for network monitoring both
to understand present performance and to allocate resources to optimize per
formance between laboratories, and the universities and institutes collabor
ating on present and future experiments. The resulting Internet End-to-End
Performance Monitoring project is called PingER. The monitoring infrastruct
ure reflects the wide geographical spread of the collaborations, and involv
es a large number of research and commercial networks. The architecture of
the data acquisition and methodology of the analysis have evolved over seve
ral years, and are described here in their present state. The strengths and
weaknesses of the project are reviewed, and the derived metrics are discus
sed in terms of their diagnostic functions. The observed short-term effects
and long-term trends are reviewed, and plans for future developments are d
escribed.