Limitations of L3 and Public Networks for Data Intensive e-Science

There are three fundamental technological choices to address when finding solutions for Data Intensive Applications:
• Packet switching vs. Circuit switching
• Public Internet vs. Private connection (shared vs. dedicated)
• L3 vs. L1 functionalities

The obvious solutions use existing technologies like L3, routing mechanisms, and the public internet for large data sets of e-Science research. However, limitations embedded in these technologies make these solutions less effective. In the age-old question of using packet switching vs. circuit switching, historically packet switching won. L1 circuit switching to limited address space is more effective than L3 packet switching to large address space. The original Internet Design Principles provides a different set of criteria for low bandwidth supply, and does not perform optimally in e-Science. Routing and L3 works well for small packets and short durations, but lose their effectiveness for large data sets and long durations. In L3 mechanisms, look-ups are performed for large data streams. This is no longer required when the destination is known in advance, saving billions of identical forwarding decisions in large data sets. On the shared public Internet, fairness is important and therefore considered in networking protocols. In dedicated private network, fairness is not an issue.

The 2009 Berkeley Nanotechnology Forum

The 2009 Berkeley Nanotechnology Forum (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~nano/events.php?view=18) is an all-day forum on Sunday, April 26. It's a great opportunity to learn more about nanotechnology today. Listen to views of top scientists, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and meet your fellow Bay Area and Berkeley community members spearheading research and innovation in the field of nanotechnology.

The theme for this year's forum is: "Solutions for Tomorrow." In addition to prominent speakers, the forum will feature a student poster session, showcasing the state-of-the-art research of the Bay Area researchers and students in nanoscience and nanoengineering.

This year's Nano Forum has been opened up to alumni for free admission. To register visit: http://nano2009.eventbrite.com/.

Working on an interesting patent case.

Transmission Mismatch

Recent advances in optical transport technologies have created a radical mismatch in networking between the optical transmission world and the electrical forwarding/routing world. Today, a single strand of optical fiber can transmit more traffic than the entire Internet core. However, end-systems with Data Intensive Applications do not have access to this abundant bandwidth. Furthermore, even though disk costs are attractively inexpensive, the feasibility of transmitting huge amounts of data is limited. The encumbrance lies in the limited transmission ability of Layer 3 (L3) architecture. In the OSI model, L3 provides switching and routing technologies, mainly as packet switching, creating logical paths known as virtual circuits for transmission of data from node to node. L3 cannot effectively transmit PetaBytes or hundreds of Terabytes, and has impeding limitations in providing service to our targeted e-Science applications. Disk transfer speed is fundamentally slower than the network. For very large data sets, access time is insignificant and remote memory access is faster than local disk access.

Gilder and Moore – Impact on the Future of Computing

The principles of both Gilder and Moore are important phenomena that must be considered juxtaposed to Grid Computing infrastructure in new e-Science research. Moore’s Law predicts doubling silicon density every 18 months. In early 2000, a common misconception held that traffic was doubling every three months. Andrew Odlyzko and Kerry Coffman showed that this was not the case. He demonstrated that traffic has been approximately doubling every 12 months since 1997 based on progress in optical bandwidth. Gilder’s Law predicts that the total capacity of optical transport systems doubles every six months. New developments seem to confirm that optical transport bandwidth availability doubles every nine months.

Expert consaltations telecommunicaions, software, patents and Internet technologies

Tal Lavian, Ph.D.

Data-Communications, Internet, Networking, Telecommunications, Patents.

Litigation Support, Expert Consultant

Http://innovations-IP.com

Http://cs.Berkeley.edu/~tlavian

Scientist, inventor and educator in the areas of computer science and electrical engineering related to communications and Internet technologies. Over 20 years of experience, including Principal Investigator for DARPA and visiting scientist at UC Berkeley’s RAD Lab.

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Technology consulting: Data networking, telecommunications, Internet, Web, network protocols, TCP/IP, VoIP, cell, mobile and wireless.

Patent consulting: Infringement analysis, validation/invalidation analysis, prior art search and review. Prior art in publications and Ph.D. dissertations to support validity and obviousness.

Prolific inventor and technologist. Key advisor for hundreds of invention: over 50 patents issued and pending, and co-authored over 25 peer-reviewed publications.

CET Faculty, Industry Fellow and Lecturer – UC Berkeley College of Engineering.