Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Network Testbed Emulab.net

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the 15-packets-transmitted-0-packets-received dept.

gseidman writes: "Have you ever needed to simulate a network? Tired of old ns? Do you just hate dealing with hardware in general? Take a peek at Utah's Emulab.Net. They have over 300 PCs, some StrongARM devices, roughly 5 miles of cabling, a huge and expensive switch, and great software for setting up a virtual LAN. They also have a gallery showing the machine room in various stages of completion (did I mention five miles of cabling?)."

2 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Simulation is never perfect by euroderf · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is the difference between book learning and experience. Sure, you can 'test' a network under idealised simulated conditions, as one might 'test' a plane in a wind tunnel, but till the network is reality, and the secretary spills a cup of coffee on the router or the chief engineer urinates drunkenly on the packet switcher, you can't tell how your network will perform.


    What is it with the modern generation who think that simulations will improve their likely performance? It is all idiocy, when I was young we did things with a spanner and looked at das blinkenlights under real world conditions. This is so much nonsense, really, the sort of thing I'd expect to come out of our modern CS courses.


    Computing is just an offshoot of down-and-dirty engineering, and none of us should forget it. The day we forget the feel of the netowrk cards in our hands, the smell of the overheating cat5, is the day we lose control over the netowkrks of America, the day that our economy starts going backwards.

  2. Re:This is very cool. by fnordboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Basic research is fine, but I wish that the money poured into it would go towards immediate business applications.

    Now that's just silly. Basic research is incredibly important, and it is vital to the economic health of the country (and the world, for that matter) that money is spent on it. Where did the transistors that your nice new Intel chip is made up of come from? Basic research. How about lots of medical technology like MRI machines and x-rays? Basic research. And there are lots of indirect benefits to basic research as well. How about those snazzy digital cameras? The need for high-quality CCDs for astronomy (*cough* hubble *cough*) and for other research applications pushes that. Do you like the world wide web? Thank a bunch of physicists who put it together so they could share their data.

    The point of basic research isn't the small, immediate payoff - it's the hope that somewhere along the line, some scientist is going to come up with something that will revolutionize the world - just like the transistor! So I respectfully disagree with you - while it's important for companies to be concerned with their quarterly earnings reports, in the long term, basic research is most certainly worth the investment.