NSF PR 00-87 - November 2, 2000
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Web100 Project to Boost Performance of Research Networks
Partners in a new research collaboration are developing
software that automatically "tunes" computer operating
systems to fully exploit available network bandwidth.
Designed to give scientists desktop access to transmission
rates of 100 million bits per second, the Web100 Project
is a joint effort of researchers at the Pittsburgh
Supercomputing Center (PSC), the National Center for
Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the National Center
for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). The National
Science Foundation (NSF) has made a three-year,$2.9
million award to the team.
Most researchers today have access to networks whose
peak performance is 100 megabits per second (Mbs)
or higher. In practice, however, the networks rarely
exceed three Mbs due to inefficiency often related
to the user's operating system and its applications.
"Progress in network access and electronic interaction
utilizing the Internet requires more than increased
bandwidth," said Aubrey Bush, director for the NSF's
Division of Advanced Networking Infrastructure and
Research. "A real challenge now is providing end-to-end
performance. This project will address some key network
issues that limit Internet performance and work toward
effectively removing barriers. The goal is to better
take advantage of available resources."
The Web100 Project will seek to optimize long-distance
networks' use of the Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP) - a key Internet standard - whose performance
can be inhibited by poor communication between the
network, the desktop operating system and the user's
applications.
"The Web100 Project seeks to provide solutions to the
bandwidth delay-product problem," said Basil Irwin,
senior network engineer at NCAR, "by automatically
and transparently optimizing TCP's transmit and receive
buffer sizes using congestion feedback information
extracted from actual network conditions as they are
reflected in the host's TCP code execution."
The PSC is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon University
and the University of Pittsburgh together with the
Westinghouse Electric Company. It was established
in 1986 and is supported by several federal agencies,
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and private industry.
NCAR was established in 1960 to serve as a focus for
research on atmospheric and related science problems.
NCSA began operations in 1986 to implement experimental
supercomputing and high-performance computing systems
and networks and to develop innovative applications
in high performance computing, visualization, and
desktop software.
For more about the Web100 Project, see: http://www.web100.org/
For more about ANIR, see: http://cise.nsf.gov/anir/
***NSF is an independent federal agency which supports
fundamental research and education across all fields
of science and engineering, with an annual budget
of about $4 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states,
through grants to about 1,600 universities and institutions
nationwide. Each year, NSF receives about 30,000 competitive
requests for funding, and makes about 10,000 new funding
awards.
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