[e2e] The Intra-Planetary Internet

[Jon Crowcroft]

for those attending the ietf, there's an ipnrg interest meeting in
parallel on the thursday (see attached message)

meanwhile, I think in this era of globalization, we should be paying
attention to the democratic rights of the planet, and building an
intra-planetary internet - 

we need to urgently and boldly, go where IP has not gove before:
straight downwards. We need to figure out how to modulate a signal so
that instead of going 25,000 miles around the planet, we go 4000 miles
through it:- i know Order(2 pi) reduction is not great in terms of
scaling, but its hideously important in terms of latency at the speed
of light - 

My suggestion is that we look at modulated streams of neutrinos (I'd
suggest graviyt waves, but people might get heavy about that).

We could then realize the Cray dream of a global grid girdling the
planet, with a maximum delay of 21.5 msecs between the furthest
computers (or voip devices)....i think this needs urgent attention -
the spinoffs could be excelletn -even leading into orbit and 
further, since IP over Neutrinos is immune from sun spot and other RF
interference.



------------------------------------>
part deux:



Why is The Global GRID like a 3G network ?


The GRID is being hyped, much as 3G is hyped - this is to generate a
lot of investment. It is just possible  that it is out of the same
fear of receession that fuels hiring people to dig ditches then fill
them in, or to start an arms race. just like 3G , its not obvious that
there is any business case, or any business at all...It is, as they
say in the film business, a "stunt project", rather than the real
Macoy.

Continuing the analogy:

Hot topics in the global grid center around 
programming models and resource brokering.

The Grid Resource Information Service gathers and , and tfces to
monitoring systems, and logs that information in a directory, and
then the various GRID middleware platforms allow you to place a task
on one or more computing systems according to Processing, Storage,
interaction and visualisation requirements (subject to any furthre
special system contraints, and accounting and security limitations).

3G handsets allow wireless access to information resources, and have
reasoanble local processing and display facilities, but are short of
power. Battery life is short and not getting better as fast as Moore's
law, and the effect of the law on programmers' expectation of 
extra cycles, memory and storage law is consuming it. Nor are users
good at remembering to re-charge hand held devices predictably (even
when they try, airport lounges and even business class seats often 
deny them the right).

Most of the teraflop machines in California are not only short of
power, they have unreliable power supplies - it is not clear that a 3
week computation can be carried out uninterrupted - it is clear that
the typical Cray T3D and IBM SP and Beowolf cluster in the North
American area would be far better placed in the 3rd world (i.e.
Europe) where the power supply is reliable. American
supre-computer/GRID customers would then rely only on trans-atlantic
network relaibility, which is excellent. 

But what of latency (I hear you cry)? Well, that is a research
problem that faces both the 2.5G and 3G networks too. With the 
very poor packet access times we find on the so-called broadband
access links already, being significantly higher than the measured IP
packet delays on the UK-US links for example, it seems that this is
really a common ground.

But supposing we come up with a "best effort" computing model, where
node failures are no more burdensome that packet loss is in the
Internet. Then we could put the Big Jobs back in California with 
impunity.

So then, what about a cominbation of the two? The available cycles on any
given 3G handset may be poor, but imagine a beowulf cluster with
as many 1GHz processors as there are GSM handsets today - a tad faster
than 35,000 teraflops would be avaialble in the UK alone.

But with a MTBF of 1 hour, and a MTTR of 1 hour, the pgroamming model
would  be a challenge.

What a prospect...for the real grand challenge.

what is more, the californians could offset the latency against the
Kyoto agreed CO2 savings....instead of (or as well as) growing more 
trees. In fact, if the typical 3G handset case was made of wood, we
would create a complete constructive eco-friendly, pervasive,
unbiquitous, user-engaged, global democratic decentralised grid.

I propose that the proper study of the GRID, is:
Grid Resourcing with Energy Efficiency thru Networking - GREEN.


------------------------------------>
As part of the Interplanetary Internet (IPN) research effort, we
are actively seeking out peer review comments regarding the 
architecture currently defined within:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-irtf-ipnrg-arch-00.txt

In addition to electronic correspondence, whenever possible, we have
been holding small gatherings for live interaction. We've found such
meetings to be very useful. An added nice feature of these live gatherings 
is that they allow for more in depth exploration of your interest in more 
direct participation in the IPN effort itself. The upcoming London IETF 
presents such a window of opportunity for such a gathering.

We would like to solicit your comments/inputs on the current IPN
architecture and wish to invite you attend to an informal peer review
gathering the week of the upcoming IETF.

On Thursday, August 9th Logica is generously providing some meeting 
space at their London facilities to support an informal IPN peer 
review gathering. Because of the overlap with Thursday's IETF sessions, 
we are entertaining the notion of holding 2 separate "opportunistic
sessions" 
(morning & afternoon) at Logica as well as the possibility of third
session
to be held over lunch at a local pub or cafe.

In the very likely event that WG or other IETF related conflicts prevent 
you from joining us at Logica, we would welcome the opportunity to chat at 
the IETF hotel at a more convenient time during the week.

If your schedule and your interests accommodate joining us, please let us
know - including whether or not you are interested in joining us during
the morning, afternoon or lunch (or any combination).

If you'd rather chat during a more convenient time (including other than
IETF week), please let us know that too. Electronic comments are always 
welcome.

Eric Travis
travis at gst.com

The details of the meeting location are as follows:

Office :        United Kingdom House
Address :       United Kingdom House (5th Floor, Rooms 4 & 5)
                180 Oxford Street
                London
                UK
Phone : +44 (0)20 7446 3306
Fax :           +44 (0)20 7446 4940
Host Contacts: Martin Symonds <SymondsM at logica.com>
                Gavin Kenny <KennyGA at logica.com>

Directions :    Turn right out of Oxford Circus tube, (Exit 1) into Oxford
St.
                UK House entrance is on Great Titchfield St, the 2nd
turning
                on the left