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October
14, 2002
Data
Transmitted at 2.8 Gigabits Per Second
EVANSTON,
Ill. — A test conducted by two Chicago computer scientists
to push trans-Atlantic high-speed data transmission has resulted
in a new top speed of 2.8 gigabits (billion bits) per second.
Researchers
Joel Mambretti, director of the International Center for Advanced
Internet Research at Northwestern University, and Robert Grossman,
director of the Laboratory for Advanced Computing and National Center
for Data Mining at the University of Illinois at Chicago, set the
speed mark Sept. 24 during a presentation in Amsterdam at iGRID
2002, a biennial conference held to showcase new applications over
high-performance networks.
Mambretti
and Grossman developed a novel technique they call Photonic Data
Services (PDS) to send gigabyte amounts of data at speeds more than
500 times faster than the standard protocol now used to send data
over the Internet.
PDS
layers and integrates four network protocols to fully utilize network
capacity at maximum speeds. The application may prove especially
effective for data mining, a research technique used for managing
extremely large volumes of information.
"By
combining these protocols, it is now possible to analyze gigabyte-size
data sets anywhere in the world," said Grossman.
"PDS
allows an application to create specialized, high-performance network
connections on demand," said Mambretti. "For the first
time these types of connections will be available to large-scale
global applications."
Mambretti
and Grossman said this type of data communication service could
benefit several businesses and research fields, including bioinformatics,
financial services, geosciences, computational research and industrial
design. They said their technique would enhance performance and
management of information transmission on national, international
and global networks.
The
transmission test linked Amsterdam to Chicago using a state-of-the-art
optical connection called NetherLight, part of the Dutch research
network SURFnet, and the Chicago-based StarLight, a switch/router
optical network facility built for high-performance research applications.
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