Superfast internet may replace world wide web

michael.dillon at bt.com michael.dillon at bt.com
Mon Apr 7 16:03:48 UTC 2008


> Subject: Superfast internet may replace world wide web
> says the solemn headline of Telegraph.

Hasn't your mummy told you not to believe everything that
you read in the papers? Especially when it involves technology!

In any case, there is no new Internet here, just an
engineered P2P network (or call it a CDN if you will) that
is intended to distribute 15 million gigs per year of data
to scientists who crunch that data on virtual supercomputer
clusters known as the Grid. They do all of this on the Internet
today, except for big data transfers for which most countries
have build special academic IP networks.

The Grid is rather like Amazon's EC2 and this CERN project is
rather like Amazon's S3. 

Yes, I agree with the Telegraph that P2P and cloud computing
Amazon style, are indeed the wave of the future, but they won't
replace the web or the Internet. They are just another theme
being added to the Internet recipe. It's just like Heston
Blumenthal's cuisine <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heston_Blumenthal>;
it's still food, it's still served in restaurants and it still
counts towards his three Michelin stars.

Still, I don't expect bacon and eggs ice cream to come to 
Baskin Robbins anytime soon.

--Michael Dillon



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