[Chapter-delegates] Fwd: [IP] UCSB "Tomorrow’s Internet: 1000 times faster"

[Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond]

Hello folks,

with the upcoming technical developments likely to happen soon (see
below), is there really a need for corporations to "break" the
User-centric Internet by needing to prioritise traffic in discriminatory
ways?
This being a rhetorical question, I don't need an answer, but I do note
that it is always when we're being told "we've reached the limit" that
someone announces a discovery that takes the current limit much higher.
Kind regards,

Olivier

-------- Message original --------
Sujet: 	[IP] UCSB "Tomorrow’s Internet: 1000 times faster"
Date : 	Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:23:52 -0400
De : 	Dave Farber <dave at farber.net>
Répondre à : 	dave at farber.net
Pour : 	ip <ip at listbox.com>





*October 20, 2010*


    Tomorrow’s Internet: 1000 times faster


      UCSB-led team developing next-generation Ethernet to handle
      surging traffic, support cloud computing, emerging applications

Imagine if all the data traversing the world right now—on long distance
networks and between and within computers and other hardware—could be
sent through a single fiber the width of a human hair.

A new research center has been launched at the University of California,
Santa Barbara (UCSB) to make that a reality. Researchers with the
Terabit Optical Ethernet Center (TOEC) will develop the technology
necessary for a new generation of Ethernet a thousand times faster, and
much more energy efficient, than today’s most advanced networks. They
are aiming for 1 Terabit Ethernet over optical fiber—1 trillion bits per
second—by 2015, with the ultimate goal of enabling 100 Terabit Ethernet
by 2020.

Partnering with TOEC as founding industry affiliates are Google Inc.
<http://www.google.com/>, Verizon <http://www.verizon.com/>, Intel
<http://www.intel.com/go/sp>, Agilent Technologies
<http://www.agilent.com/> and Rockwell Collins Inc
<http://www.rockwellcollins.com/>.

Internet traffic is booming, as businesses and institutions handle
massive quantities of data and consumers stream video, share
high-resolution photos and battle it out in online games. Millions of
people will soon be consuming billions of bits per second in their
living rooms, all at the same time.

“We’re going to need much faster networking to handle the explosion in
Internet traffic and support new large-scale applications like cloud
computing,” says Daniel Blumenthal
<http://www.ocpn.ece.ucsb.edu/index.php/professor-blumenthal>, Professor
of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSB and Director of TOEC,
which is part of UCSB’s Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE
<http://iee.ucsb.edu/>).

“The work that will be conducted at TOEC will enable the future of the
Internet,” says Stuart Elby, Vice President of Network Architecture for
Verizon.

Ethernet, the way computers talk to each other over a network, has
become the de facto standard for data transmission both on a small scale
and across global networks. “It’s an accepted, flexible interface,” says
Internet pioneer David Farber
<http://www.epp.cmu.edu/people/bios/farber.html>, a professor at
Carnegie Mellon University and former Chief Technologist for the Federal
Communications Commission.

Ethernet is constantly evolving, but soon—in as little as five years,
according to some estimates—it won’t be able to keep up with the speed
and bandwidth required for applications like video and cloud computing,
and distributed data storage.

“Based on current traffic growth, it’s clear that 1 Terabit per second
trunks will be needed in the near future,” Elby says.

Not only will Terabit Ethernet soon be needed to satisfy the demands
created by the way we use networks now, but Farber says
high-performance, high-speed Ethernet will open up opportunities we
couldn’t dream of today: “You build it, they will come.”

“We are excited to be part of this new center and look forward to
working with the other members to enable this future capability,” says
Mario Paniccia, Director of Intel’s Photonics Technology Lab.

Current Ethernet technologies can’t be pushed much past 100 Gigabits per
second—the speed that’s beginning to be implemented now—mainly because
of the amount of power needed to run and cool the required systems,
Blumenthal says. Large data centers can consume as much power as a small
city. New generations of Ethernet need to be much more energy-efficient
and cost-effective, or the power problem will limit Ethernet
development, crippling the growth of key U.S. industries and technologies.

“Our goal,” Blumenthal says, “is to make energy-saving technologies that
will allow applications and the underlying networks to continue to scale
as needed. You could think of it as greening future networks, and the
systems that rely on those networks.”

To achieve that, and drive Ethernet toward 100 Terabits per second,
fundamental improvements in the underlying technologies will be
required, he adds. “We’re going to need dramatic breakthroughs across
multiple disciplines, not only in the core Ethernet technologies but in
Ethernet-based networking and in the engineering and measurement systems
used to develop and test these new technologies,” Blumenthal says.

Research at TOEC will build on UCSB’s world-leading expertise in
materials, advanced electronics, photonic integrated circuit technology,
silicon photonics and high-speed integrated optical and electronic
circuits, and in bridging these new technologies with real networking
systems. Blumenthal says new low-cost, energy-efficient optical
technologies that leverage the techniques now used in semiconductor
manufacturing will be the foundation for the Ethernet of the future.

“Our strategy of using silicon photonics to create low-cost, integrated,
Terabit-per-second devices,” says Paniccia of Intel, “fits perfectly
with TOEC’s charter for energy-efficient high-speed Ethernet.”

Doug Baney, Senior Research Manager at testing and measurement company
Agilent Technologies, says “the characterization of the high-speed and
complex nature of future Terabit Ethernet communications opens up whole
new challenges in measurement instrumentation. That’s a critical area
that needs to be solved in tandem with component and system development
to help pave the way to Terabit Ethernet deployment.”

Other UCSB researchers who are involved with TOEC, all professors in
the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
<http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/>, are IEE Director John Bowers
<http://optoelectronics.ece.ucsb.edu/profile/john-bowers>, Acting Dean
of Engineering Larry Coldren
<http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/Faculty/Coldren/home.htm>, Nadir Dagli
<http://engineering.ucsb.edu/faculty/profile/302> and Mark Rodwell
<http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/Faculty/rodwell/>.

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