Released by the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance in May 2002, this white paper discusses 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) technology and the development of the forthcoming standard. 10GbE is ten times faster than the current support for one gigabit per second, and it has the potential to be a dominant form of network technology. The report summarizes some of the key similarities and differences between...

Computer scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley wrote this paper for the 2003 International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, with the intention of evaluating five different systems and the performance of their respective networks. Advantages of each configuration are outlined, and some optimization techniques are suggested....

An informative collection of articles on computer hardware and operation is presented by Ars Technica. Many of the more recent articles (July 2002 to February 2003) have shifted from focusing on specific technologies and platforms to explaining basic principles of computer architecture. This includes "pipelining and superscalar execution," bandwidth and latency, multithreading, and CPU caching....

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), one of the key technologies in the transition to broadband telecommunications, is used to transmit "data, video and voice at ultra high speeds." This home page for the ATM Forum is a good place to learn about the technology and its many applications. For people unfamiliar with ATM, the Beginner's Guide to ATM explains some of the basic principles involved in...

HyperTransport technology is an architecture that allows data transfer between chips in excess of ten gigabytes per second. This white paper from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), released in October 2002, considers the potential of HyperTransport in designing an input/ output bus for a microprocessor. The technology, while accommodating high speed demands, requires relatively little power, making it...

Published on March 18, 2003, this report provides an excellent insight into the expanding 10-Gigabit Ethernet technology. The author starts by explaining what 10-Gigabit Ethernet is and what applications are likely to be the first to take advantage of its advanced, high-speed protocol. A market analysis examines current trends of the technology's growth and suggests what the future might hold. A...

Linktionary is an online dictionary of Internet technologies, networking hardware and protocols, and general Web terminology that "includes extensive links to help you further your network research and training." Users can perform keyword searches of Linktionary or browse the material via alphabetical indexes or topic listings. Most of the entries in Linktionary are explained in detail, and...

Cooltown is Hewlett-Packard's ambitious vision of a pervasive computing environment, where mobile services, Internet, and intelligent devices are intertwined to make an omnipresent networked experience. This vision of the future makes up a high profile research effort to develop technologies that will enable such a connected world. The program's homepage has a great deal of information about...

The title of this paper immediately brings to mind images of a harmful technology that would change the operation of the Internet. In this case, the term disruptive is used to describe a way to revolutionize the Net and break away from the old adage, "If it's not broken, don't fix it." The proposed technology to accomplish this task is overlay networks. The paper describes the characteristics of...

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) identifies as "a leader in defining the future's high-performance cyberinfrastructure for scientists, engineers, and society." Initiated as part of the National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program, NCSA now works with research centers across the U.S. to build cyberinfrastructure, tools, and applications for grid computing....