[p2p-research] Application_Content_Infrastructure, important development

Sun Jun 6 22:10:43 CEST 2010

Hi sepp, I added it as a discussion item ... see
http://p2pfoundation.net/Application_Content_Infrastructure

Can you also post it as a blog discussion on the 14th?

Michel

On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 1:46 AM, Sepp Hasslberger <sepp at lastrega.com> wrote:

>  Hi Michel,
>
> here is my view on the wiki entry on Application Content Infrastructure.
>
> Where do you think this should be put to be available to those interested,
> and would you think that the writer of the ACI paper should be advised?
>
> Sepp
>
>
>
> This is a very interesting discussion (I just re-read it) and it does touch
> on the question of a user-owned network controlled by peers, although it
> does not delve into how such a network could work. St. Arnaud talks about
> the growing importance of Application Content Infrastructure (ACI) on the
> net, and how much of the traffic that traditionally would go over the
> internet backbone of internet service providers is actually being routed and
> computed and stored in alternative ways.
>
>  *"Examples of ACIs include large distributed caching networks such as
> Akamai, cloud service providers such as Amazon and Azure, Application
> Service Providers (ASPs) like Google and Apple, Content Distribution
> Networks (CDNs) such as Limelight and Hulu, and social networking services
> like Facebook and Twitter. Many Fortune 500 companies like banks and
> airlines have also deployed their own ACIs as an adjunct to their own
> private wide area networks in order to provide secure and timely service to
> their customers. Most major content and application organizations have
> contracted with commercial ACIs or have deployed their own infrastructure.
> ACIs also allows the content provider to load balance demand, so that
> traffic in regions expressing excessive loads can be re-directed to nodes
> where there is spare capacity.*
>
> *The end result is that with very little fanfare the Internet has been
> transformed so much so over the past decade that virtually all major content
> and every advanced application on the Internet is now delivered over an ACI
> independent of the traditional carrier Internet backbones."*
>
>
> In effect, the document says that ISPs are following the outdated model of
> the phone companies but aren't really doing their job of connecting users to
> the greater net with sufficient bandwidth for the content, especially video,
> to arrive at the end user in a proper way. It goes on to make the point that
> ACI or Application Content Infrastructure could be expanded, and in
> conjunction with R&E (Regional and Educational) networks could get even
> closer to the end user.
>
>  *"Up to most recently the text book model of the Internet was for
> businesses and consumers to access the internet through a last mile provider
> such as telephone or cable company. Their traffic would be sent across the
> backbone to its destination by an Internet service provider. This model
> worked reasonably well in the early days of the Internet but as new
> multimedia content such as video and network applications evolved the
> current model failed to provide a satisfactory quality of experience for
> users in terms of responsiveness and speed. As a result a host of content,
> application and hosting companies invested in something for the purposes of
> this paper I have collectively labeled as a Application Content
> Infrastructure (ACI) that complemented and expanded the original Internet
> through the integration of computing, storage and network links."*
>
>
> What is left open is how the last mile is going to function. The ISPs seem
> to be too busy metering their pipes and even grading traffic, giving
> priority to certain content and degrading the stuff that is seen as being in
> violation of intellectual property laws and they forget that their job
> includes to connect everyone with a sufficiently wide band connection for
> content not to suffer degradation before arriving at the end user.
>
> Mobile networks are mentioned as a possible solution, but with demands
> escalating, they may soon be running into the same trouble as current last
> mile technologies.
>
> There is a mention of "customer owned networks" but with no vision of how
> to achieve these.
>
>
> I would like to make a point or two here, just for discussion.
>
> There are currently efforts to adapt WIFI technology to build mesh
> networks, but WIFI was conceived as a short range technology and "last mile"
> typically means we may be talking distances between nodes of several hundred
> meters. This degrades signal throughput of WIFI, even with external
> antennas. G3 or G4 mobile phone technology could help, but here we talk
> about competing providers that are not about to share networks with each
> other.
>
> In addition, there are fairly widespread concerns over the huge increase in
> electromagnetic pollution brought to our homes by both WIFI and mobile phone
> technologies, which are not going to go away, unless there is a change in
> technical specs that can assure the electrosensitive that they have a future
> that doesn't involve hiding out in far away places or wearing protective
> clothing and installing special shielding in their homes.
>
> There IS an interesting technology that does not involve pulsed microwaves
> as the transmission medium and that could - with some help - be made
> available to end users, constructing a tight weave of local connectivity
> that can tap into both ISPs and ACIs and their extensions and that is
> sufficiently fast and robust to be a candidate.
>
> ISPs could perhaps be induced to adopt it as an alternative to building out
> their last mile connectivity alone, which turns out to be very expensive if
> it is to carry broadcast quality content. Users could be the ultimate
> custodians of that type of network but it would imply end users and and ISPs
> forming some kind of alliance, out of which the end users get free local
> connectivity (they supply the electricity and basic maintenance) and ISPs
> get a functioning last mile distribution and customers for their backbone
> services.
>
> The vision is to take the light beams that travel through optic cables and
> to replace the cables by simple light-based transmission, preferably laser,
> between the end users. This would form a fault tolerant and fast (high data
> throughput) network from one rooftop to the next, which would make local
> connectivity free and fast. Not every end user would have to be connected to
> the backbone. The user-cloud could be linked by what we might call "super
> users" (those with need for high bandwidth or with need for exceptionally
> stable connection) such as large businesses, educational institutions, city
> hall, etc. to the optic cable backbones. Those connections that are anyway
> needed and already paid for would be quite sufficient to connect the
> user-cloud to the internet.
>
> The technology will need some development, but it has been proven to work
> in concept. One implementation marries ultra wide band radio technology with
> a laser and a single optic fiber:
>
> *"Moshe Ran, Coordinator of the EU-funded project, UROOF (Photonic
> components for Ultra-wideband Radio Over Optical Fiber), has a vision. He
> wants to see streams of high-definition video and other high-bandwidth
> services flowing through homes, office buildings, and even ships and planes,
> through a happy marriage of optical and ultra-wideband radio technologies."
> *
>
> *The UROOF EAT system starts with a central laser that generates an
> unmodulated optical signal and sends it through a single optical fibre to
> remote units. In its downlink mode, the central unit receives a UWB radio
> signal, modulates the optical carrier, and beams it to the remote units. In
> the uplink mode, a remote EAT modulates the optical signal and sends it back
> to the central station.*
> *
> *
>
> *The EAT based Access Node 2 has the potential to carry far more
> information than Access Node 1, but there is a catch. "With EAT you can
> approach 60 GHz," says Ran, "but it is expensive."*
>
> *The UROOF team is actively working to increase the bandwidth of Access
> Node 2 and reduce its cost.*
>
> *Ran is encouraged by the progress UROOF has made. They have shown that
> UWB signals can be beamed over hundreds of metres using inexpensive optical
> technology, with greater bandwidth and longer distances in sight.*
>
> *"As ultra-wideband technology penetrates the mass market - within the
> next two years - it will be possible to manufacture an access node that will
> meet the demand very nicely," says Ran.*
> ***The UROOF project received funding from ICT strand of the EU's Sixth
> Framework Programme for research.*
>
> Link: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/34767.php
>
> Another way of linking is to directly beam the laser from one user's device
> to a receiving sensor of another user as described in the patent application
> of Ajang Bahar of Toronto, Canada.
>
>  *The current options for wireless communication have changed the way
> people work and the way in which networks can be deployed. However, there
> remains unresolved problems in the setup and configuration of wireless
> communication links. Both known cellular and ad hoc wireless networking
> protocols and systems are deficient in that the ability for users to
> communicate without a priori knowledge of MAC addresses (represented by
> phone numbers, IP addresses and the like) is limited or may be compromised
> in a hostile environment. In contrast, provided by aspects of the present
> invention are devices, systems and methods for establishing ad hoc wireless
> communication between users that do not necessarily have MAC addresses and
> the like for one another. In some embodiments, a first user visually selects
> a second user and points a coherent light beam at an electronic device
> employed by the second user. Data specific to the first user is modulated on
> the coherent light beam, which can then be demodulated when the coherent
> light beam is received by the electronic device of the second user.*
>
> Link: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080247345#ixzz0q61l0c8U
>
> A similar patent by Doucet and Panak can be found here:
>
>
> http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=RbQjAAAAEBAJ&dq=6188988&ie=ISO-8859-1
>
>
> There is a paper by Akella and others of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
> titled *Building Blocks for Mobile Free-Space-Optical Networks.*
>
> *Optical wireless, also known as free space optics (FSO), is an effective
> high bandwidth communication technology serving commercial point-to-point
> links in terrestrial last mile applications and in infrared indoor LANs. FSO
> has several attractive characteristics such as (i) dense spacial reuse, (ii)
> low power usage per transmitted bit, (iii) license-free band of operation,
> and (iv) relatively high bandwidth. Despite these features it has not been
> considered as a communication environment for general-purpose metropolitan
> area networks or multi-hop ad-hoc networks, which are currently based on
> radio frequency (RF) communication technologies...*
>
>
> The US military has analyzed Free Space Optics as a transmission technology
> and has produced and published a White Paper:
>
> http://www.docstoc.com/docs/25017951/Analysis-of-FSO
>
> My point is that the technology of optical transmission has been explored
> and is technically feasible for last mile applications. Since users can be
> connected to more than one peer, the network becomes fault tolerant.
> Increasing proximity to a super-user, a node connected with the backbone,
> will make for increasing reliability of the network.
>
> Now if telcos and ISPs could be induced to embrace that technology, a
> simple, cheap implementation could be developed that could easilty be given
> away to end users, in exchange for operation of the node. ISPs would have
> resolved the problem of covering the last mile, while users would be linked
> in to the internet at negligible or no cost and we would have a local p2p
> network that data can travel on without having to go through any provider.
> Even in a national context, data would only have to go short hops (such as
> from one city to another) saving backbone capacity and making the net very
> much more resilient.
>
>
> Sepp Hasslberger for the P2P Foundation
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  On 24/mag/10, at 10:27, Michel Bauwens wrote:
>
>  Sepp, Olivier, see
> http://p2pfoundation.net/Application_Content_Infrastructure
>
> blog commentary and presentation would be much appreciated, see discussion
> part for summary of implications of this new internet infrastructure,
>
> Michel
>
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>
>
>
>
>
>

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