Traveling through the network 

Having used the PING and Traceroute commands before extensively for my work, I was already familiar with how to use it and how it can be used to troubleshoot network issues between systems. For example, using the ping command from a device to ping another device one can find if the devices are talking and available to each other on the network. If they are not connected one can do a traceroute to determine where the break is and if the issue is a connection one on the physical layer, a virtual one or a routing issue. It can also be used as a simple tool to see if a user's system is online and talking to the rest of the network. Packets travel through the network by hopping from router to router until they reach their destination. 

I decided to ping and traceroute the .jp and .ca amazon websites. Being separated by the pacific I believed would give me a good view of how geographical distance affects packet travel time. 

The last successful hop to the .ca domain was almost 200ms faster than the hop to the .jp domain. Being that the longest hop to the baseline google.com hop was 82ms, the difference in time between the .jp and .ca domain is significant. Being that I am currently in the middle east, this adds even more of a distance between me and the end destination. 

Using ping and traceroute to troubleshoot an issue I would say is one of the simplest troubleshooting steps one can take. One of the reasons a ping or traceroute can fail is a simple physical connection break between the systems. Another reason can be that the system being ping or tracerouted does not allow it to be pinged. This can be achieved by closing the port that allows for pining and traceroute on an internal switch in that domain.