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Researcher Only High Bandwidth Network

Posted by samzenpus on from the elite-fiber dept.

Icarus1919 writes "A brand-new 10 gigabit per second per user optical fiber network is now available to researchers in the U.S. (compared to Internet2, which offers only 10 gigabits of bandwidth total, regardless of the number of users). The National Lambda Rail, as it is known, is named for the 40 different wavelengths of light it uses to send data within the fiber network. In the past, researchers have complained about the relatively (relative when you're dealing with terabytes of data) small bandwidth they can access to send data, and the addition of the NLR will most likely be a boon to research."

14 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. High Speed, but what about processing? by pholower · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From what I understand, they will be using quite a bit of the bandwidth in this as well. Do we know how much data must be trasfered at once? Is this continuous data, or is it in chunks? How much ram would it take to hold all of this data until it can be placed unto a disk for storage?

    --
    -- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
    1. Re:High Speed, but what about processing? by psetzer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Cray XT3 has several 10 gig NICs, and enough RAM to soak up anything you want to send at it. You can't really have more than a quarter petabyte of data you need to send right now, do you? In big ass systems, the one constant you can always count on is communication to be the thing that slows it down.

      --
      "Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is living in a state of sin." -- John von Neumann
  2. This is news? by SirPhreak · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I did a paper on this for my introductory networking class LAST YEAR and the topic had been a subject in the class for a few semesters before mine.

    --
    ------------------------------ SirPhreak - "It's Thinking..."
  3. Re:Stop the Press! by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Internet2 has been around for years. Theres atleast 3 government/military networks that use the InternetProtocol. Thats just in the US, who knows what kind of private nets are out there in forign nations.

    So, looks like monkeyboy knows more than you.

    --
    Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
  4. And if you remember your history... by physicsphairy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is really not so different from how the present internet got started. Will researchers pave the way for a new international fiberoptic network?

    --
    When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
    1. Re:And if you remember your history... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, because the original one snuck up on governments and large corporations (read: China and the RIAA) and I doubt they'll let that happen twice.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  5. obligitory comparison... by endersdouble · · Score: 5, Interesting

    how does this compare to a station wagon full of DVDs hurtling down the highway?

  6. So what qualifies as a researcher... by Trogre · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... in the US?

    What do you need to be researching? Who do you need to be affiliated with?

    Do people like RMS count?

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  7. Add a turbo for lower ping rates. by Charcharodon · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Yes never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon, I think they call them crossover vehicles these days, full of discs going down the highway. They've been saying that just upgrading the media every couple of years or so. The first time I heard it was floppies.

    Yes that is true they actually did a comparison, which if I remeber correctly endedup here on slashdot about the "bandwidth" of the US postal service just using Netflix DVD rentals and AOL disks as the "data" being transferred. It was astonishing that with just those the bandwidth was something like a factor 300 times faster than then internet in mbps and resulted in more total data being transfered than the internet over the course of a month.

    Actually I came to that realization myself a few years back at the hight of my MP3 collecting days. A 40gb drive passed among friends through the mail was much faster and had better results than looking on the net.

  8. Re:The application process by metlin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, I've heard that genetic data is huge -- but have never encountered any first hand.

    However I do have first hand experience with particle physics data, and yes those are HUGE. Those are really unweildy and have a lot of work that need to be done on them.

    Some of the particle accelerators on an average generate a few TBs for every collision experiment, and those are pretty huge numbers.

  9. Re:Use exact units. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    No. The real question is how many Libraries of Congress fit into a station wagon.

  10. PetaBytes by Leadmagnet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have customers that have single databases over 20TB in size and petabytes of storage in a single datacenter, the biggest well over 25PB. They would pay millions of dollars ever month to be able to replicate that to a disaster recovery or bunker site at realtime.

    --
    http://www.leadmagnet.50megs.com
  11. Re:Stop the Press! by LinuxGeek · · Score: 3, Interesting
    But its all bananna's to monkey boy.

    Ok, let me see if I understand you correctly. You cannot properly spell 'banana', and you think Bush is a moron? Mr. Bush is the first president to hold an MBA from any school, let alone from Harvard.

    Bush's SAT scores were higher than Kerry's too. I bet both candidates are very aware of the DARPA Net derived Internet, Internet2 and many secret things that we will never even see. Neither John Kerry nor George Bush got where they are today without being both intelligent and politically savvy.
    --

    Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
  12. HDless PC by droper · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sounds like we are a step closer to not needing secondary storage anymore.