Web development: "Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Web development: "Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Hiroaki Harai, Director of Network Architecture Laboratory at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), announced at the International Conference on Intelligence in Next Generation Networks (ICIN 2011) in Berlin, an insight into the status of the AKARI project for network development in Japan . It already started in 2006 project has for Japan, a similar meaning as the photonic part of the new Pay Framework Research Programme of the EU under the title "Horizon 2020", which prepares the European Commission in Brussels at the time, it also includes many developments, as they in Europe be the roof of the Seventh Framework Programme for the "Future Internet" is already funded.

The name "Akari" translates as "the light at the end of the tunnel" and is thus suitable for the current state of network development in which there seem to be about the future architecture more questions than answers, as well as the high demand, virtually like design on the drawing board ("Clean-slate design") communications infrastructure from the ground up to be able to. To be developed for the target architecture should be derived on the testbed implementations necessary migration scenarios that lead out of today's networks. Of the most evolutionary approach comparable R & D projects in Europe and the U.S., the Akari protagonists try in the name stand out by not of "Next" Generation Networks (NGNs), but consistently from the "New" Generation Network (NWGN) . talk

With the NWGN attempts in a holistic approach to the development of different approaches from the optical transmission over the network virtualization and identity management to be coordinated with radio and sensor networks, and bring under one umbrella. This includes, for example as "ID / Locator Split Architecture" known new addressing scheme that splits the current double feature of Internet addresses and separates the host identifying the location of the hosts on a given network. "We are pushing this one 'identity layer' between the network and transport layer," said Harai. In this way, some changes are intended to power in mobile applications easier and safer, in which only the address, but not change the identity of the user. "We are now going to test the appropriate software," said the Japanese.

In the core network with the goal of energy efficiency and increase capacity to develop an integrated packet-and circuit-switched optical network is on the agenda. The aim is Optical Packet Switches (OPS) for transmission rates of more than 100 gigabits per second, which should be operated with Optical Circuit Switch (OCS) under a unified network management. Completely different needs, the development of sensor networks for smart homes and medical applications. "The resulting data are usually used regionally" and should not be passed through a high-volume backbone, Harai said. For this kind of local transportation are needed to be independent of mobile networks, municipal mesh networks and platforms more suitable for developing the appropriate security mechanisms.

In the period until 2015, the NWGN functions and concepts are now being tested in national testbed JGN2plus, so that then can start the product development, "the deployment target is 2020." After the leaders had at the beginning of the project taken in publications nor the creation of a "sustainable network architecture" for the next 50 to 100 years in the eye, one has been at NICT's ambitions seem slightly scaled back: In Berlin, the Akari chief architect said, only of a new ICT infrastructure "for the next two to three decades."