[1st-mile-nm] [FRIAM] Kicking the Internet up a notch

[Dale Carstensen]

There were several messages on nanog (North American Network Operators
Group) today inspired by articles in another London newspaper, the
Telegraph.  I think both the Times (of London) and the Telegraph
articles were about the CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research,
out of order due to it being in the French-speaking part of Switzerland)
LHC (Large Hadron Collider) firing up in a few days.  LHC will
generate data at a rate that previously has been imponderable,
something in the petabytes per year.

Lucy Lynch and Steve Bellovin pointed out some cartoons about LHC.

What CERN means by The Grid is a network of data centers, with
10 gigabits per second connections organized in levels.  A step
beyond what internet2 has been doing in the United States, and
somewhat Europe-centric due to CERN being in Europe.  I think
internet2 and U.S. universities and labs will be involved in
The Grid, too, certainly Fermilab in Illinois and Brookhaven
in New York.

There will be ten separate 10 Gb connections between CERN and
other institutions, in the tier 0 (CERN) to tier 1 (those other
10 places) cloud, is what I read somewhere today.  There was
much criticism that the reporters for the London newspapers
don't much understand the topic, also.

New Mexico, though, well maybe LANL and/or Sandia might have
some involvement in searching for the Higgs Boson, but if not,
The Grid probably won't have any presence in the Land of
Enchantment, will it?

The xcel energy and current group BPL (Broadband over Power
Lines) stuff seems to me to be not BPL, but rather NPL (Narrowband
over Power Lines) for such purposes as remote meter reading,
distribution control (hmm, probably security problems here,
come to think of it, maybe financial chicanery could happen
with the meter reading, too) and management of non-utility
power generation (customers of power utilities selling
photovoltaic or wind or biomass electrical generation back
to the grid).

Open access to The Grid probably means if you have multi-million
dollar physics funding, they'd be happy to relieve you of
some money, if you're not some crank all set to publish in
the Journal of Irreproducible Results or whatever that thing
is that seems more likely to be humor than science.

>http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWEB/CDA/0,3080,1-1-1_15531_43141_46932-39884-2_68_
>132-0,00.html
>
>http://www.currentgroup.com/
>
>
>think BPL  (broadband over power lines) and having it interface into the
>homes usage of electrons.
>
>
>limited by physics on BPL, unless you do OPGW
>
>not sure about open-access
>
>John Osmon wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 02:58:31PM -0600, David Breecker wrote:
>>> Back to Tom's original question:  I'd like to propose that National
>>> Lambda Rail, NM Lambda Rail, the NMCAC, the 1st Mile Institute, and
>>> the Governor's Science and Technology Advisor would be an appropriate
>>> ad hoc task force to see if and how The Grid could reach us here.
>>>
>>> If that makes sense, I'll volunteer for service.  Thoughts?
>> 
>> 
>> I'll throw some chum in the water:
>> 
>> What is "The Grid," and what is needed to connect to it?
>> 
>> Does it have to be ubiquitious?  Or is is sufficient to build
>> one or two points of presence, and then extend its reach over
>> time? 
>> 
>> How granular does that presence have to be before we're content
>> that "The Grid" reaches us?