tl;dr This post outlines information on the RIPE Atlas software probe. Also, have a look at Shodan geodns and geoping for running measurements from vantage points.
RIPE Atlas is a global network of devices, called probes and anchors, that actively measure Internet connectivity. RIPE Atlas users can also perform customised measurements to gain valuable data about their networks.
At the time of writing, 12,000+ probes were connected. The total number of probes connected may be higher, as probes go offline due to Internet disconnections and power issues, especially in underdeveloped/developing countries.
All this while, the RIPE Atlas probes have been hardware devices.
That changed sometime in February 2020, when the RIPE NCC released a software version of the RIPE Atlas probe. This is super useful (apart from the fact that the hardware probe costs money to manufacture and ship and most importantly Indian customs š¢ ) as you can run the software probe on RaspberryPi along with many other supported operating systems(CentOS7, CentOS8, Debian 9, Debian 10 and Docker).
For more information about installing the software probe and registration, please click the following link.
Here is a video that was recorded by RIPE NCC as part of a webinar that I did for them.
If anyone needs any help in installing/registering the probe, feel free to ping š