[p2p-research] Application_Content_Infrastructure, important development

Sun Jun 6 22:49:59 CEST 2010

I don't know where the ACI name came from.  It seems to me like saying that
there's a move to continue to distribute collective computing and storage to
the edge is sufficient.

I think it's neat and I'll run a node.

A

On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 10:10 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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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