923Mbits/s across the ocean

Sat Mar 8 21:13:53 UTC 2003

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 at yuriev.com [mailto:alex at yuriev.com] 
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2003 12:30 PM
To: Cottrell, Les
Cc: 'nanog at 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