A Collaborative Global O.S. - New Strategy from Research & Education Networks

Specialized users in large organizations have enjoyed optimal access to network resources; while users on the edge remain at the mercy of telcos for whom managed scarcity is the working model.

A new generation of NREN (National Research and Education Network) services is being built in response to the growing need to collaborate across and beyond traditional borders and silos. Large NRENs are federating efforts to create a new "global collaboration operating system" [my term], which enables researchers to create their own environments for data collection, processing, visualization and storage.

For eComm innovators on the edge, this could open the door to more powerful resources: bigger bandwidth, as well as storage and software development that can be time-shared globally - using new "collaboration interfaces."  The new question is how to make new network tools and collaborations interfaces scalable enough to work all the way from the LHC grid to an edge-user desktop form-factor. 

The biggest challenge is to find public-private models that let us tap 100 gigabit national backbones to provide more affordable resources for edge-based innovators and businesses who have local understanding and priorities. This presentation will show how recent funding of Internet2, US-UCAN and National Lambda Rail provide new possibilities and models for bringing rich computing resources to the edge in the U.S.