The IP Traffic "exaflood"
A colleague passed along this paper to me last week from The Discovery Institute. Bret Swanson and George Gilder go into detail on the increasing amount of data, particularly 'rich media' traveling over our broadband pipes. They estimate that in the U.S. by 2015:
movie downloads and P2P file sharing could be 100 exabytes video calling and virtual windows could generate 400 exabytes “cloud” computing and remote backup could total 50 exabytes Internet video, gaming, and virtual worlds could produce 200 exabytes non-Internet “IPTV” could reach 100 exabytes, and possibly much more business IP traffic will generate some 100 exabytes
Certainly on a personal level we can all relate to the immense amount of data we are putting out there, whether it is the home movie or a large amount of product demonstrations (had to get that plug in...). If you simply think about the future of IPTV, not to mention everything else, we are pushing towards immense levels of IP traffic. We were also reminded over Twitter that Cisco has already started talking 'zetta' levels. Bret and George write:
"No one can know just how fast Internet traffic will grow, making capacity planning for network backbone engineers a difficult task. In fact, like network data itself, the macro trends discussed in this paper are “bursty”—they are unpredictable and potentially explosive. Networks will thus require much more raw bandwidth, yes, but also sophisticated new techniques to finely manage traffic flows. We do know for certain that if consumers and innovators are to enjoy the rising tide of the Exaflood, capacity in access networks to homes and businesses will have to expand by a factor of between 10 and 100 in just the next few years. One- and 10-megabit links will have to become 25- and 100-megabit links."
This is dead-on correct. The network backbone, and it's ability to handle the growing traffic, is certainly a topic of great importance. It puts even more emphasis on the ability to test the equipment that makes up the backbone, and test it in a way that proves it can handle today's IP traffic AND the sudden burst of traffic growth that folks see over time. Obviously we think this is one of the most important aspects to these 'growth predictions'.
It's beneficial to prognosticate on IP traffic levels in 2010, 2015 and beyond. People get excited by these prospects, but one area we certainly need more light on is the fact that as IP traffic continues to grow and NEMs continue to push innovation the testing industry has been somewhat stagnant in it's ability to validate the backbone. It reminded me of the quote Des had in the NSS Labs news last week (emphasis mine):
"Legacy test products have not kept up with the pace of innovation and are not architected to properly test next-generation content-aware equipment. Evaluating and certifying content-aware equipment by testing with a single application, like HTTP, may seem suitable for other testing providers, but it is irresponsible when today's network devices are hammered by an increasing volume of business, recreational and malicious traffic.”
