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On Sunday, February 24, 2002, at 10:37 , Stephen Donnelly wrote:
If your question Joe is 'what is the justification for internet2?', then I'd say there seems to be at least two commonly cited ones.
One is the use in current large applications such as 'grid' computing, a la DTF. Connecting super computer centres may consume a lot of bandwidth. Climate models, particle physics results etc.
How much bandwidth is "a lot of bandwidth"? I see commercial providers with multiple parallel STM-64s plumbed directly into routers either sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific, who are struggling to attract customers to even remotely fill the pipes. The situation in the metro and long-haul intracontinental networks is even more fibre-rich. I don't see a need to build another internet here -- I see a need to start using the existing one :)
The other one is that the internet2 is supposed to spurr new application development, showing what *can* be done with huge amounts of bandwidth when it's available at low cost. One of the more PR friendly applications would probably be the 'virtual teleconferencing' systems, where 3d models are transmitted along with the video, allowing participants to be rendered in 3d at each end. (Enables you to make direct eye contact, surprisingly important.)
This is the same answer as the one above, really -- "in order to obtain more bandwidth".
So in short, the internet2 initiatives aren't so much about networking anymore, as applications. On the other hand, the vBNS has native multi-cast, Abilene supports IPv6, and CA-net3 is intended to be 'all optical'; they're developing OBGP for instance.
Applications belong at the edge; the core network is necessarily stupid.
If your question was something else, then I'll get blasted for being OT.
No, that was my question, and that's the answer I'm used to hearing. I still don't understand it, though. Joe - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog