November 15, 1999
New Network Speed Records Set
PORTLAND, Oregon– Seven high technology leaders collaborated at SC99 today to set a number of internet speed records, demonstrating that long-distance gigabit-per-second networking is ready for prime time and that next generation Internet technologies and capabilities are emerging in applications, in end-systems, and in network infrastructure.
To set the stage, at the network infrastructure level, the DARPA-sponsored National Transparent Optical Network (NTON), the University of Washington-led Pacific/Northwest Gigapop (P/NWGP), and Nortel Networks joined forces to deliver 2.4 gigabits per second (Gbps) of packet-over-SONET based standard Internet capacity from the Microsoft Corp. and University of Washington (UW) campuses, through a shared point of presence at the Pacific/Northwest Gigapop in Seattle, to the SC99 exhibition hall in Portland.
Microsoft, the National Computational Science Alliance (Alliance), the University of Washington (UW) and Sony (in support of the ResearchTV consortium) demonstrated two working, real-time gigabit applications in their coordinated SC99 exhibits. Further, the UW, Microsoft, the Alliance and Sony were able to run these applications concurrently, setting a record of well over 2 Gbps in aggregate throughput — by a wide margin clearly the fastest real-time applications ever run over a wide area network.
Earlier this year, the UW and Sony were the first to demonstrate live studio quality, High Definition Television (HDTV) broadcasts over Internet2/Abilene. Today, in another record-breaking effort, they and the partnership successfully transmitted a real-time gigabit HDTV stream of five simultaneous channels of minimally-compressed, studio-quality HDTV over the internet, using industry-standard HDTV video, ‘Wintel’ computer systems, and networking equipment from leading vendors such as Juniper.
Each channel within the overall stream consumed more than 200 million-bits-per-second (Mbps), for a total of well over a billion-bits-per-second in concurrent throughput in a state-of-the-art real-time application setting a new internet speed record.
“More than just showing the stunning quality and immediacy that next generation internet capabilities can bring to the desktop computers, TV’s and HDTV’s around the world, this demonstration illustrates the feasibility of regularly using Internet transport technology for the real-time delivery of extraordinarily high quality video, virtual reality, tele-medicine, and other imaging streams” said UW Vice President Ron Johnson. He added that the demonstration shows “it is now possible to run distributed broadband applications over high-speed, next generation Internet WANS using hardware and software available in the consumer market”. The demo used broadcast and Internet standards, Sony’s suite of HDTV gear, off-the-shelf networking equipment, and commodity PCs with Microsoft NT running custom high performance software the UW C&C group developed using Microsoft Visual Studio and other tools.
By way of comparison, the UW/Sony/ResearchTV demonstration is the equivalent of the simultaneous transmission of the entire channel lineup of a 150 channel cable TV system, or of 50 channels of broadcast quality HDTV, five feature movies, or interactions among a large number of high-resolution video walls, shared virtual realities, &/or immersive environments. And, it shows that the internet is capable of speeds and quality impossible to achieve with traditional broadcast technologies.
Microsoft and the Alliance and the partners demonstrated that it is now possible to send a gigabit-per-second TCP/IP stream from one Windows 2000 workstation to another over a WAN. Microsoft teamed with the Alliance’s NT cluster development team and with the National Laboratory for Applied Network Research (NLANR) to verify that Windows 2000 TCP/IP software performance scales at Gbps rates on long-distance networks. This work demonstrates speed breakthroughs in end-to-end workstation internetworking and shows the capabilities of Windows 2000 TCP/IP.
“Our role in NLANR is to work with application teams to help them harness the capabilities of high performance networks,” said Larry Smarr, director of the Alliance and NCSA, the leading-edge site for the Alliance. “Because many of these applications involve Windows workstations, gigabit per second performance of Windows over wide area networks is a capability that impacts the entire high performance computing community.”
Jim Allchin, senior vice president of the Platforms Division at Microsoft Corp., said this demonstration showed that distributed computing over high-speed, long-distance networks is a major part of the future for the Windows OS. “This exhibition shows that Windows 2000 truly is a broadband operating system prepared for the next millennium. Microsoft is thrilled that Windows 2000 is able to display its gigabit-readiness through such a tremendously innovative engineering feat.”
Ed Lazowska, Chair of UW’s Computer Science & Engineering Department, added that “enabling gigabit networking capabilities on what will eventually be tens of millions of desktops is the first step in unleashing developers worldwide to create the next generation of applications, architectures and content.”
Together, these collaborative demonstrations show that the era of gigabit-per-second networking and the next generation of Internet applications and content is at hand.
The joint demonstrations will continue throughout the rest of SC99. For demonstration times, visit the Alliance research booth (R300) or the joint demo booth (RE602), or to see the demonstrations go to the UW research booth (RE602) where the suite of coordinated demos are being run.
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For more information, contact:
Jennifer Todd, Waggener Edstrom/Microsoft, jtodd@wagged.com,
425-637-9097
David Richardson, University of Washington, drr@u.washington.edu,
206-543-2876
Karen Green, NCSA/Alliance, kareng@ncsa.uiuc.edu, 217-265-0748
Susan Brandt, ResearchTV, sbrandt@u.washington.edu, 212-414-4672
Lisa Young, Sony Electronics, lisa.young@am.sony.com, 408-955-5683
Jacqueline Brown, P/NWGP, jbrown@cac.washington.edu, 206-685-6238
For info on the demo’s network aspects see: www.washington.edu/hdtv/sc99/net
