DEGUST · CONTINUOUS NETWORK & SERVICE VALIDATION
Is your network delivering what you promised?
Continuously validate what customers can actually reach and use—across distributed locations, networks and services.
Keep your monitoring. Add the customer’s perspective.
FROM SIGNAL TO PATTERN
8,000 locations. 437 show similar degradation. Why?
One poor result is a signal. A comparable pattern can reveal where to investigate.
437 affected locations
Shared characteristics become visible across related validation results.
200 comparable locations · NORMAL
Same region and technology, with a relevant route, carrier or other characteristic changed.
Illustrative layout data, not a customer result. Fully automatic correlation of common fault-pattern properties is in active development.
What do they have in common? Region: Northern Germany · Technology: DOCSIS · CPE: FRITZ!Box · Firmware: X.YY · Carrier: Carrier A
200 comparable locations — NORMAL. Same region, same technology and a comparable environment, but a different route or carrier.
Compare validation results under comparable conditions.
REAL-WORLD EVIDENCE
Follow the evidence.
“ebay.de feels slow.”
Conceptual reconstruction of the documented case. Exact route evidence and wording require technical approval.
The service wasn’t the only thing that changed. The path changed.
Degust continuously validates the service while collecting supporting evidence such as routing information. This allows service degradation and path changes to be examined in the same time context.
DNS / IPv6
Half the Internet seems unavailable.
DNS results and available IPv6 connectivity did not match.
Amazon / Carrier Routing
Amazon feels slow.
Validation results coincided with an unusual provider routing path.
Cases require technical review, anonymisation and publication approval. No carrier or provider is assigned responsibility without sufficient evidence.
CONTEXT CHANGES THE RESULT
The same measurement doesn't mean the same quality.
A result becomes meaningful when it is evaluated with the relevant context and configured expectation.
Illustrative configuration examples — not universal quality thresholds.
Quality of Outcome (QoO)
QoO asks whether the intended service outcome works in its context. The deeper technical definition follows below.
DEFINITIONS & TECHNICAL CONTEXT
Understanding network & service validation.
The visual story above shows the operational idea. The following definitions make the concepts explicit and reusable for technical evaluation, search and answer engines.
What is Degust?
Degust is Acctopus software for continuously validating network and service quality from real, distributed measurement endpoints. It provides an operational view of whether services deliver the intended outcome from the customer perspective.
What is network and service validation?
It is the continuous use of configured measurements to determine whether connectivity and services work from a relevant endpoint and in the relevant context.
How is validation different from infrastructure monitoring?
Infrastructure monitoring observes components and network health. Validation complements it with evidence about whether users can reach and use the intended service with the expected outcome.
What is an Acctopus Explorer?
An Explorer is a distributed measurement endpoint, typically physical, placed behind a CPE, with a friendly customer or in a POP to execute configured measurements.
How does Degust validate customer experience?
Explorers execute configured network and service measurements. Degust qualifies the results with metadata and customer-defined expectations so operators can examine individual results, groups and supporting timing or routing evidence.
How are validation results compared?
Results can be grouped by region, access technology, CPE, firmware, POP, carrier, provider, route, tariff or customer-defined metadata and compared under comparable conditions.
How are common characteristics identified?
Current measurements and metadata support a focused investigation across affected locations. Fully automatic comparison of shared fault-pattern characteristics is NEAR-TERM / in active development.
How can routing information help?
Regular traceroutes to tested systems allow service degradation to be examined in the same time context as path changes or unusual routes. This narrows an investigation without prematurely assigning responsibility.
What is Quality of Outcome?
Quality of Outcome assesses whether the intended service outcome works in its context. It supports outcome-oriented Web, Gaming and Video validation and is not the same as QoE.
Can Degust complement existing monitoring?
Yes. Degust adds a customer-perspective validation layer; it is not positioned as a blanket replacement for established monitoring systems.
Does Degust work for small regional providers?
Yes. It can support regional ISPs and Stadtwerke as well as large operators, across Broadband & Fiber and Mobile service contexts.
How does Degust scale?
Current deployments range from around 30 Explorers to more than 10,000 registered endpoints. Subscription scope depends on Explorers, service depth and data retention.
Explore the validation topics
Planned deep dives include Broadband Customer Experience, why fast Internet can still feel slow, intermittent connectivity and micro-outages, QoS vs. QoE, Quality of Outcome, Mobile Service Validation, and routing, peering and upstream analysis. Final internal destinations remain open.
You already know your infrastructure.
Now validate what your customers experience.
Turn distributed validation results into a clearer operational view.