RE: 923Mbits/s across the ocean
With the glossing over of details that goes with press releases there appears to be a misunderstanding here. I never said we paid list prices. I am well aware that one can get large discounts from vendors. However, I think it is important to quote a well known price (in this case list), which people can relate to how well they think they can negotiate (otherwise it just becomes a bragging point of who can get the largest discount), and gets away from the point of giving people an idea of what it might cost. In our case we got 100% (free) discounts from Level(3) and Cisco for the Sunnyvale to Chicago link and the GSR. The link from StarLight to Amsterdam was put in place for a European funded demonstration (since turned into a production link), the equipment was mainly funded by another European research project. At the same time, getting it for free has its costs, one has much less leverage with the vendors as to delivery (and retrieval) dates, reliability etc. as well as the headaches of getting everything (PCs, loaned NIC cards, Routers, links) to come together, to keep the vendors interest, extend the loan etc. High speed at reasonable costs are the end-goal. However, it is important to be able to plan for when one will need such links, to know what one will be able to achieve, and for regular users to be ready to use them when the commonly available. This takes some effort up front to achieve and demonstrate. -----Original Message----- From: alex@yuriev.com [mailto:alex@yuriev.com] Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 12:30 PM To: Cottrell, Les Cc: 'nanog@nanog.org' Subject: Re: 923Mbits/s across the ocean
You are modest in your budgetary request. Just the Cisco router (GSR 12406) we had on free loan listed at close to a million dollars, and the OC192 links just from Sunnyvale to Chicago would have cost what was left of the million/per month.
No, your budget folks have no clue, which they clearly demonstrate. Anyone here who buys Cisco at the list prices works for companies that for some reason want to waste money. We pay about 10c on a dollar. Anyone leasing OC-192 at that price as opposite to lighting it up is smoking.
"What am I missing here, theres OC48=2.4Gb, OC192=10Gb ..."
We were running host to host (end-to-end) with a single stream with common off the shelf equipment, there are not too many (I think none)
1GE host NICs available today that are in production (e.g. without signing a non-disclosure agreement).
Again, if this is all available today, what is so new that you guys have done, apart from blowing tons of money?
The remarks about window size and buffer are interesting also. It is true large windows are needed. To approach 1Gbits/s we require 40MByte windows. If this is going to be a problem, then we need to raise question like this soon and figure out how to address (add more memory, use other protocols etc.). In practice to approcah 2.5Gbits/s requires 120MByte windows.
I am quite happy to concede that this does not need to be about some jocks beating a record. I do think it is important to catch the public's attention to why high speeds are important, that they are achievable today application to application (it would also be useful to estimate when such speeds are available to universities, large companies, small companies, the home etc.), and for techies it is important to start to understand the challenges the high speeds raise, e.g. cpu and router memories, bugs in TCP, OS, application etc., new TCP stacks, new (possibly UDP based) protocols such as tsunami, need for 64 bit counters in monitoring, effects of the NIC card, jumbo requirements etc., and what is needed to address them. Also to try and put it in meaningful terms (such as 2 full length DVD movies in a minute, that could also increase the "cease and desist" legal messages shipped ;-)) is important.
High speeds are not important. High speeds at a *reasonable* cost are important. What you are describing is a high speed at an *unreasonable* cost. Alex
With the glossing over of details that goes with press releases there appears to be a misunderstanding here. I never said we paid list prices. I am well aware that one can get large discounts from vendors. However, I think it is important to quote a well known price (in this case list), which people can relate to how well they think they can negotiate (otherwise it just becomes a bragging point of who can get the largest discount), and gets away from the point of giving people an idea of what it might cost. In our case we got 100% (free) discounts from Level(3) and Cisco for the Sunnyvale to Chicago link and the GSR.
Ok, after such explanation, I am more than willing to accept that it could be a good use of the money, including the money that was paid to people to sit and tweak parameters of gear, kernels, NIC cards to achieve imporovements in speed (since no one in production world can justify having people on the clock doing just that to document the smallest possible improvements).
High speed at reasonable costs are the end-goal. However, it is important to be able to plan for when one will need such links, to know what one will be able to achieve, and for regular users to be ready to use them when the commonly available. This takes some effort up front to achieve and demonstrate.
True, however as it was mentioned before, why not do the same type of testing in a lab environment between a couple of boxes having the TCP stack insert appropriate delays? When in 1995 we were getting simplex IP links over satellites up that is how we did the testing before bringing them up on the birds. Alex
LC> Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2003 13:13:53 -0800 LC> From: "Cottrell, Les" LC> The link from StarLight to Amsterdam was put in place for a man 4 dummynet LC> High speed at reasonable costs are the end-goal. However, it LC> is important to be able to plan for when one will need such LC> links, to know what one will be able to achieve, and for LC> regular users to be ready to use them when the commonly LC> available. This takes some effort up front to achieve and LC> demonstrate. The thing is we already know that large buffers help greatly. Seeing how fast one can push a box with big buffers might be cool, but is it accomplishing anything? As you demonstrated, anyone who needs that speed here and now can get a private line and use a stock *ix install. Done/done. How about other models? Limited server buffers (it's nice to handle more than 25 simultaneous streams), random-bandwidth clients, congestion, jitter... how were those treated? Have these been explored? If there's going to be research, let's see some TCP stack tuning and the results. Investigating other protocols would be nice; perhaps the scope of the contest should be changed. The level of "research" in unleashing bone-stock equipment is more appropriate for an undergrad paper than a news release. Eddy -- Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - EverQuick Internet Division Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 (785) 865-5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 (316) 794-8922 Wichita ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 11:23:58 +0000 (GMT) From: A Trap <blacklist@brics.com> To: blacklist@brics.com Subject: Please ignore this portion of my mail signature. These last few lines are a trap for address-harvesting spambots. Do NOT send mail to <blacklist@brics.com>, or you are likely to be blocked.
participants (3)
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alex＠yuriev.com -
Cottrell, Les -
E.B. Dreger