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Another Internet2 Speed Record Broken

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the busting-outta-school dept.

rdwald writes "An international team of scientists led by Caltech have set a new Internet2 speed record of 101 gigabits per second. They even helpfully converted this into one LoC/15 minutes. Lots of technical details in this press release; in addition to the obviously better network infrastructure, new TCP protocols were used."

21 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. one LoC/15 minutes by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 5, Funny

    One Line of Code every 15 minutes? Seems slow to me.

    --
    You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
  2. Gigabits... by wittj · · Score: 5, Informative

    The speed is 101 Gigabits per second (Gbps), not Gigabytes.

    1. Re:Gigabits... by shawn(at)fsu · · Score: 4, Funny

      Right now the MPAA is trying to figure out how many movies that converts to....

      --
      500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
  3. Writing speeds by Norgus · · Score: 5, Funny

    >. if only my HDD would write that fast!

  4. Doesn't make sense by oexeo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    new TCP protocols were used

    TCP is a specific protocol, a "new" TCP protocol would suggest a different protocol, unless it means a revision of the current protocol.

    1. Re:Doesn't make sense by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 5, Informative

      They are talking about "Fast" TCP, which AFAIK just consists of a better routing algorithm and using multiple TCP streams at once.

    2. Re:Doesn't make sense by justforaday · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, but if it's using TCP/IP the two Ps cancel each other out, so you'd need to append 'protocol' to that, right?

      Or at least that's what I remember from algebra...

      --
      I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
    3. Re:Doesn't make sense by Mondrames · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My friend calls this an "Extronym" - when you append the word for wich the last initial stands to the acronym. For example - ATM Machine or PIN Number. She's be using it for a couple of years now.

  5. Re:Too Fast for its Own Good by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ``Isn't there a point when we've reached a speed where rather than deciding what to send from one place to another, we become lazy and start sending everything?''

    You mean like broadcasting radio and TV?

    --
    Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
  6. Best read this way.... by Himring · · Score: 5, Funny

    Best read using Christopher Lloyd's voice from Back to The Future, e.g.:

    "101 jigowatts per second!!!" --Professor Emmett Brown

    --
    "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
  7. Re:Too Fast for its Own Good by oexeo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > Has anyone every stopped to think this might be too fast for its own good?

    Has the infamous Bill Gates quote not taught you anything?

  8. Sustained transfer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How did they sustain a transfer like that? Unless my math is wrong, that's 11GBps ... what has that kind of read/write speed?

  9. My Car Gets Forty Rod to the Hogsgead by The-Bus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, I'm not really sure what the Library of Congress unit does for me. I'm more used to the European metric measurement of Geburninged Volkswagen.

    Nowhere in the article does it say how long they ran the test for. A second? A minute? An hour?

    I mean that's a full terabyte almost every minute and a half. What has so much data?

    --

    Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    1. Re:My Car Gets Forty Rod to the Hogsgead by SlayerofGods · · Score: 5, Funny
      I mean that's a full terabyte almost every minute and a half. What has so much data?
      The library of congress perhaps?
      --

      Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
  10. I can beat that! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can transfer one and a half terabits from one end of the room to the other in less than a second in two easy steps.

    Step 1. Fill 200MB hard drive with data
    Step 2. Fling aforementioned hard drive in a frizbee'esque motion across the room.

    Expect some data loss however.

    Take that Caltech!

  11. They could get better speed by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They could probably get much better speeds if they compressed it first. The Library of Congress is quite compressible, as there is a lot of redundant data. Text in general is known to be quite compressible.

    Here's a question. Sure, you can send 101 Gigabits per second. But what kind of power do you need on either end to send or interpret that much data? I know my hard drive doesn't go that fast. I don't even think my RAM is that fast.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  12. Possible uses? by yetanothermike · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Instead of looking at the possibility of beefing up your catalog of Futurama episodes, think about the new uses for it.

    Medical imaging produces very large files, and the need to transfer them over distances quickly to save lives is real.

    The possibility for video is great as well. Imagine getting multiple feeds of the next WTO event from different sources on the ground. Or quality alternative broadcasting that isn't just some postage-stamp-sized, pixelated blobs. Torrents are nice, but there is something to be said for being jacked in live.

    And for those who didn't RTFA, it's 3 DVDs a second.

    --

    [insert sig file here]

  13. What I want to know is... by daveschroeder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...how fast this could transfer the sum of all data (DNA, memory, etc.) contained in a human.

    Yes, I'm kidding. But only half kidding. In some crazy future where we can reconstitute energy into matter, how much bandwidth would be needed to do this practically? Do we even have any ideas or estimates on how much storage would be needed to accurately represent the nature of the human body in terms of data? And no, I'm not talking about the "memory" of the brain - I'm talking about the physical manifestation of the body itself, of which the memory of the brain is a part.

  14. Re:Oye by City+Jim+3000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cargo capacity of a 747-400 is 53000 kg and 160 m3
    I assume around the same size and weight of a blueray disc as of a DVD disc which is 1.2 mm thick, 12cm in diameter and weighs a maximum of 20 grams. Also consider a plastic sleeve which maybe adds .2 mm and 3 grams.
    Space needs for a disc with sleeve is thus 120x120x1.4mm = 20160 mm^3 = 0,00002016 m^3
    Weight is 23 grams = 0,023 kg.
    Thus:
    discs/plane (volume) = 160 / 0,00002016 ~ 7936500 pcs
    discs/plane (weight) = 53000 / 0,023 ~ 2304300 pcs
    maximum discs per plane is then about 2300000 pcs
    Blueray stores 50GB = 400 Gbit
    Plane stores 400*2300000 Gbit = 920'000'000 Gbit

    Not counting the time to load, burn and read the discs, a non-stop flight from Pittsburgh to LA takes around 5 hours = 18000 seconds
    This amounts to 920000000/18000 =~ 51000 Gbit/sec

    Considering a very approximate cost of $1/kg for the transport, and $2 for each disc it amounts to around
    $4653000 total.
    Which is about 0.04 $/Gbyte, or around the same price per GB as a cheap 160GB Hard drive.

  15. Problems inherent in high speed networks by F4Codec · · Score: 4, Funny
    A paper I wrote a while ago...

    Some Perceived Problems with the Introduction of Terabit Network Technologies.

    This short paper attempts to highlight some potential problems associated with the introduction of high speed networking - specifically at the Terabit per second level. These problems are still in the theoretical arena as practical Terabit networks are probably still several weeks away from fabrication.

    Introduction.

    The primary problem when considering Terabit networks must be the enormous speed that the packets on such networks will be traveling. Naturally there are problems at the protocol level with very large window sizes necessary for useful throughput, and enormous quantities of data "in flight" at any one point. However, these problems are encountered at the Gigabit level and are solvable in principle (by appropriate window and packet size negotiation for instance).

    The major problem that is perceived at such high speeds is that data is now flowing at a significant fraction of the speed of light. This brings into play a number of relativistic effects that must be taken into account when designing such high speed networks.

    Physical Considerations.

    There are firstly a number of physical considerations that must be taken into account. These are problems associated with any body traveling close to the speed of light (c).

    1. A large amount of energy is required to accelerate the packets to the required velocity. However, the closer one approaches c - the more of that energy is transformed into mass. Thus packets will become heavier. A related problem is the slowing down of packets, when they enter conventional lower speed Megabit networks. The large amounts of energy that have gone into accelerating the packets and giving them extra mass will be lost. This will require large heat sinks. Cable fractures may also be explosive in these cases (which is in keeping with the abbreviation TNT Terabit Network Technologies). Alternatively, a special large coil of cable could be used to allow the packets to naturally slow down.
    2. Networks often need to be laid to fit the physical shapes of buildings and other infrastructure. When any body traveling close to c undergoes acceleration it tends to emit "breaking radiation" or bremsstrahlung. This is particularly noticeable when bodies have to undergo angular acceleration when turning corners. Thus any bends in the cabling will have to be heavily shielded with lead plates to stop the intense burst of high energy particles. At high enough speeds, the curvature of the Earth may also prove a significant loss of energy.
    3. Whilst traveling at high speeds, the packets will undergo time-dilation effects. Thus whilst two ends of a connection may agree on a round-trip time for a packet, this may well be different to the packets perceived RTT. The packets estimate of the RTT will be shorter than the measured delay. Therefore if times are kept in the packet this will lead to confusion.
    4. When a body is traveling at high speeds, it tends to shrink in the direction of the travel. This means that a packet taking 1400 bytes, might actually take up 1300 bytes space on the network. This leads to more capacity being available than might first be perceived. However all routers must be able to handle packets at speed to stop them suddenly growing. This leads to circuit switching being possibly a better base technology.

    A perhaps more serious problem is the case of collisions on a network technology such as ethernet. The collision of two very high speed packets could give rise to many spectacular effects, equivalent to those seen in current particle accelerators. In par

  16. Asking question when not required... by zijus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I read a lot of : is this needed?, let's be clever and ask oneself what we are doing...

    Frankly, it is hilarious from folks who probably jumped on GMail, IPods, stupid phone which does all but work when needed, and other devices which are arguably the most un-needed space on the planet. (No you won't get me to believe your 200MB emails are worth keeping...)

    Ciao

    As a reminder, the ALICE experiment at CERN will produce per year 1 PB ( Peta Byte ) of _raw_ data. This is only _one_ experiment out of _four_. Add DB overhead and you start getting the picture. And no: there won't be backups: too big. The nature of particle physics is to be statistics. The search is for slight deviations from what is predicted. So the amount of raw data is huge. It is also that the amount of (raw) data per second produced will be in some case magnitude of order bigger.

    It is thought that some data will not be stored at all at CERN, but sent straight to remote storage farm. Too much data to be stored localy.

    The people analysing those data will be scattered over the planet, involving indeed the need of big transfers.

    Ha ha ha: is this needed ? Hi hi let's think about it... Please dump all the crap data you pretend to need and ask again the question.