September 9th, 2004
Intel CTO calls for Internet overhaul
Intel CTO Pat Gelsinger says the Internet must be upgraded with a new layer of capabilities to deal with imminent problems of capacity, security and reliability. While he applauded efforts by Cisco and other networking companies to improve the existing Internet plumbing, Gelsinger argued that it’s not sufficient to deal with the complexity of Internet2, the shift to IPv6 and other issues. He pointed to an experimental network called PlanetLab–which involves 150 universities, along with Intel, HP, AT&T Labs, France Telecom and NEC Laboratories America–as a step in the right direction.
Servers embedded in the network provide PlanetLab with the new layer of services, including event processing to monitor what’s happening in the network; network mapping to arrange connections between computers; and content distribution to optimize where information is stored. Gelsinger described PlanetLab’s Webcasting system as the "Akamai of the future."
Embedded servers network to help run the Web more efficiently makes a lot of sense, but it will take some time to commercialize the research project.
