We are seeing significant gains in the performance of many components in computers today. CPUs get faster with each new generation of the hardware. RAM gets faster, hard drives get faster, and SSDs get faster as well. What is also needed are performance improvements in the networks computers send and receive data across.
A new breakthrough is now promising some impressive gains in the speed at which we can read optical data. Today phone calls and cable TV shows are sent across buried cables using sliced light. The slicing of these signals is typically done via an electro-optic modulator. This is the device allowing the laser beam to be turned on and off at high speeds, enabling the ones and zeros of binary code to be transmitted.
One of the big challenges, and bottlenecks in today’s system, is the reading of that data on the receiving end. A new record has been set in reading this type of digital data with an error-free component that was able to read data at 640 Gbits/sec.
The feat was engineered and performed by a group of researchers from Denmark and Australia and the results of the breakthrough were published in the journal Optics Express. According to the researchers, conventional readers in use today require a photo-detector to operate. These detectors are capable of operating at 40 Gbps, a mere fraction the new sensor is capable at operating at.
Multiplexing is often used to speed up data transmission with each signal being transmitted down an optical fibre at the same time. At the receiving end of these streams, the data has to be de-multiplexed to get usable data out of each of the streams sent.
The basis of the new technology comes from an experiment performed in Japan in 1998 where researchers were able to send data at 640 Gbps and read the data back, but the reading apparatus required special long lengths of cable made from a special fibre. The system was also very unstable.
The new de-multiplexing device being demonstrated by the research team at the Technical University of Denmark can handle the extremely high data rate in a stable manner. The new system also requires a waveguide of only 5 cm long, compared to the 50 meters of special cabling needed in the Japanese experiment.
The 5cm long waveguide was developed by the Centre for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems or CUDOS in Australia. The compact size of the new device also makes it easy to integrate into other components to design ultra-fast functional chips. The researchers say that the process could also allow for even higher data transmission rates running into the trillion bits per second range.
The team of researchers says that in the near future they hope to enable a 1 Tbps Ethernet network. Compared to some of the fastest 1 Gbps Ethernet networks in us today that is a huge improvement in data transmission speed. The compact design of the required components should also mean that when they come to be, 1 Tbps networking components could be the same basic size as the network components in use today around the world.
The Intel Atom processor is becoming ubiquitous for anything requiring low power and decent performance. It was only a matter of time before a manufacturer started offering the Atom in a NAS.
The QNAP TS-439 Pro is a business class 4 bay model of the worldwide award-winning Turbo NAS Series.
With a 1.6 GHz CPU Atom CPU it should offer significant performance improvements over older models that use a Marvell 5281 500MHz or 1.6GHz Intel Celeron Processor.
There are also significant power consumption improvements over the Celeron devices. The TS-509 Pro uses 47.3W when in sleep mode and 84.7W when in operation.
The TS-439 uses 28.8W and 38.85W respectively. That is quite an improvement.
Even if you compare it to the TS-409 which uses a much lower spec Marvell 5281 500MHz CPU the TS-439 offers better power consumption when in operation with the TS-409 churning out 18.8W in sleep mode but 44.6W while in operation.
As usual with QNAP NAS devices the TS-439 Pro supports file sharing across Linux, UNIX, Mac, and Windows platforms. Different applications are supported, e.g. file server, FTP server, printer server, web server, and encrypted remote replication. Also, windows AD (Active Directory) is supported to help create an easy-to-access environment and lower the maintenance cost. SSH login and web page SSL login enable users to transfer, store, and share data securely.
MAC Address filtering can be configured on wireless router or access point to filter and allow only wireless adapters with MAC address in allowed list to join wireless network. If your wireless adapter’s MAC address is not in the allowed list, it cannot join wireless network with no connectivity, access local only or other network error.
This approach is useful if you deploy it on small home or office wireless network, but not so good for big network as it’s time consuming to maintain long MAC address allowed list. Furthermore this filtering can be overcome by experienced users with good networking knowledge or hackers, by using sniffing program to gather those MAC addresses that are allowed to join wireless network, and then configure the captured MAC address manually on his/her wireless adapter’s properties and join wireless network (we call it MAC address spoofing).
The much anticipated and talked about Digital Britain report has been published, and is available as a 1.5MB (MegaByte) download from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
The report covers a broad spectrum of areas, from digital radio to content rights and next generation broadband and makes some 22 recommendations. From a quick read the key points for the broadband community are:
- Creation of a group to assess what needs to be done to stimulate next generation broadband roll-out.
- The final report will explore whether distributors and rights-holders are willing to fund a new approach to civil enforcement of copyright.
- An intention to legislate in relation to peer to peer file sharing, where broadband providers would need to inform alleged infringers of rights that their conduct is unlawful. Also a requirement for providers to collect anonymised data on repeat infringers that will be available to rights holders on receipt of a court order.
- A universal service commitment to be effective by 2012. Delivered using a mix of wired and wireless methods. At this time it seems that the options are for speeds up to 2Mbps.
On first read it seems the report falls short of recommending that funds be made available to ensure a true future proof fibre network is rolled out. The USO looks set to probably be delivered by a mixture of first generation broadband solutions, and 2Mbps by 2012 while a step up from dial-up, is going to very quickly be outpaced by applications and changes in internet usage.
The report at least in its interim form reads much more like a summary of where the UK is now, and lays out very little to bring real hope to the 30% of the UK households that have to date not seen the full benefits of a competitive broadband market. Many had hopes the report would provide a clear way forward, but we are left with promises of more watching and assessing.
Via: Think Broadband
