Global Bandwidth Famine to
architectures to meet this demand, and
further consideration of the types of
Impact All Internet Users
networks and the technology deployed
is required if they are to ensure
profitability.
An independent Global Bandwidth
Study, commissioned by CIP A significant investment is needed to
Technologies, has revealed that the ensure that businesses can share large
bandwidth glut is history and the files and send high quality images (for
world’s consumers are facing a health, design and videoconferencing
bandwidth famine. purposes) and home users are able to
access and enjoy high definition internet
Due to huge changes in network content television (IPTV), on-line gaming and
and social behaviours, the bandwidth other services requiring large data
demand is set to exceed 160 Tbits/s by transfers at high speed such as video-
2010 – an annual demand that exceeds clip and image sharing.”
the equivalent of the combined
broadband network usage of the David Smith, Chief Technology Officer
previous decade (1998-2008). clear that demands for bandwidth will for CIP, said: “The Global Bandwidth
continue to put increasing pressure on Study demonstrates that current
The demonstrable explosion of existing network infrastructures. By telecom networks will be unable to cope
consumer’s use of online video and data 2018, assuming that this capacity is with the scaling demands for
services, which includes the BBC’s made available by the operators; usage bandwidth. A step-change in technology
iPlayer and YouTube, has seen the could grow to 40 to 100 times the levels is needed that can not only deliver this
demand for internet bandwidth soar. seen in networks today. However it is bandwidth demand at economic cost but
The BBC reported that over 21 million difficult to see how operators can also significantly reduce the amount of
programmes were requested on iPlayer economically grow existing network energy required to power and cool it.”
in April 2008 alone, only 4 months after
going live.
Support for InfiniBand over 50 km
The author of the new independent
study, David Payne, formerly BT and ADVA Optical Networking, Obsidian To address all these market
now with the Institute of Advanced Strategics Inc. and Voltaire Ltd. have requirements, ADVA Optical
Telecommunications at Swansea announced an integrated capability to Networking, Obsidian Strategics and
University, has calculated that the extend InfiniBand connections to 50km Voltaire have partnered to deliver a
increasing demands are not a without performance degradation. The complete InfiniBand-over-distance
temporary change in behaviour, but the solution was successfully tested at the solution for HPC and enterprise
beginning of a massive requirement for University of Stuttgart’s High applications. The major building blocks
additional bandwidth as the use of Performance Computing Center of the joint solution are director-class
online video and data services (HLRS), which provides systems, tools InfiniBand switches (Voltaire)
increases. and expertise for public and private interconnected via InfiniBand range
supercomputing development projects. extenders (Obsidian) and bit-
Explains David Payne: “Around the turn transparent, low-latency WDM
of the millennium, we used to talk about Extending InfiniBand across the transport devices (ADVA).
a bandwidth “glut”. There was a lot of metropolitan area network (MAN) will
idle capacity. Networks now are being allow enterprises to greatly enhance The HLRS solution comprised the
used in a way that few people foresaw, not only their supercomputing, but also following elements. More than 500
for example early take-up of their disaster-recovery and storage- computing nodes of the new Baden-
personalised video, rather than networking applications, using Württemberg Grid Cluster were
broadcast television, dominating InfiniBand as the underlying unified clustered via two 288-port Voltaire Grid
internet video services. Based on a network architecture. Director™ 2012 switches.
range of service scenario models, it is
September 2008 www.datacentresols.com | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS | 17
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