Posted on 06/29/2006 6:48:48 AM PDT by Dark Skies
The way researchers work with one another around the globe could be revolutionized by a new advancement in Internet technology unveiled by Ann Arbor-based Internet2 on Thursday.
Internet2 is an alternative nonprofit network used by a group of 208 universities - including the University of Michigan - 70 corporations and 45 government agencies and research organizations to transmit data at tremendous speed compared to the Internet most of us use.
The group announced a deal with Level(3), one of the world's largest Internet infrastructure owners, to roll out a faster network with a new feature that will allow enormous amounts of information to be transmitted between two or more parties.
Internet2 will be able to establish direct, temporary links between users around the world that will allow information to flow instantly between distant locations.
What does it mean? Compare it to this: Instead of driving a giant semi full of information to Saline then Milan, then Belleville and on to Detroit, slowing down traffic all the way, you can drive it on your own road to Detroit without stopping.
"Before now, it took up to days to establish this connection, now it can be done in seconds,'' said Douglas Van Houweling, president and CEO of Internet2.
Internet2 already provides bandwidth to researchers to exchange information that's about 100 times faster than a home-based high-speed Internet line.
Without this new system, two users can't easily be connected to one another.
Through Internet2, giant radio telescopes could gather information at much greater detail and exponentially faster than is currently possible.
"This will allow us to peer much deeper into the objects that were formed early in the evolution of the universe. It will allow us to examine a far greater class of objects in the universe and it will allow us to use the existing telescopes much more efficiently,'' said Alan Whitney, associate director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory.
Scott Gerstenberger, external networking manager at University of Michigan, said that if the system works as advertised, it will allow for the quick setup of high-definition teleconferencing, something that the commercial Internet and even Internet2 can't handle.
"We are increasingly running into applications that are too fast to use traditional Internet technology,'' he said.
On the commercial Internet - the system most people use - this information transfer would be so massive that it would be like trying to drive the space shuttle down I-94 during rush-hour traffic.
Eventually, Internet2 plans to be able to run up to 80 simultaneous direct connections at once that are all big enough to handle transfers far larger than a high-definition video conference.
In addition to greatly expanding the ability to share information across the world, this type of advanced networking will eventually work its way down to the consumer level, Van Houweling said.
The problem now is that the highways are 10 lanes wide, but the off-ramps are one-lane gravel roads. As fiber optic cable connections become more readily available to individual users, these direct connections will be possible.
Internet2 was established in 1996 and is headquartered in Ann Arbor. It employs 60 people locally.
Level(3) owns the physical cable networks and routers around the U.S. and Europe on which the Internet sends information. It is providing Internet2 with a dedicated portion of its bandwidth.
... and the definition of "instantly" is.... ?
It also just means that the Cracker community will be able to launch more attacks faster since there's still no verifiable security built into the system or tired old protocols.
From the department of redundancy department..
Well, okay. But I think the porn industry will be the area to benefit the most (they always are).
Yeah...I said it was the only update I could find. Looks like a tech article written by a gossip columist.
like trying to drive the space shuttle down I-94 during rush-hour traffic.
the highways are 10 lanes wide, but the off-ramps are one-lane gravel roads.
Dontcha just love it when a reporter turns on the Metaphor Generator® ??
Excellent...thx!
Wasn't this called the x drive YEARS ago?
No problemo.
I was part of the academic networking community back when Internet2 got started. I said it then and it's true now: Internet2 will never amount to anything but a fast private intranet for academic institutions. With a commercial Internet now, commercial development will always outpace research development. For instance, VOIP owes nothing to Internet2 when that's supposedly the type of application Internet2 should be fostering.
The other problem is that Internet2 is working on grand problems (interconnecting university infrastructures) when the simpler ones (interconnecting department infrastructures) still hasn't been solved well enough.
IMHO
Thx for the insider's view. I guess the cloudy outlook for internet2 is the reason we don't see much of it in the news.
You can say that again.
Hmmm, a network with thousands of users, vs. billions of users, and it manages to be really fats. What a trick!
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