Undersea cables transmit an estimated 99% of international communications and data traffic, and there are more than half a million miles of these cables that are spread at the bottom of the world's seas and oceans, and they can transmit data at a high speed of 640 (gigabytes) per second, which is equivalent to conducting about 7 million Half a million phone calls simultaneously.
These cables use optical fibers, which are made of glass or plastic strands to transmit data, and each cable consists of a bundle of these strands capable of carrying messages in the form of light rays.
Fiber-optic cables have a much higher bandwidth than metallic cables, which enables them to carry more data and provide a much faster transmission rate, and they are less susceptible to noise and voice interference, and they are also thinner and lighter than metal cables, and they are used as a mainstay for the Internet and long-range communications, As mentioned by the "Datacenter dynamics" platform in a recent report.
wide area networks
Wide area networks or what is known as “WAN” are the global backbone of today’s Internet, linking billions of computers across continents and oceans around the world to form the basis of modern online services.
As it is known, the Corona pandemic has put great pressure on the provision of network services to billions of people around the world, which made them struggle to provide high bandwidth capable of withstanding the emerging workloads related to machine learning, video calls, healthcare and other services imposed by the pandemic.
To connect WAN networks over hundreds of miles, fiber-optic cables that transmit data using light are connected throughout our neighborhoods. Although they are extremely fast, they are not always reliable;
Thunderstorms, bad weather, accidents and even fish can often cause severe damage, which leads to loss of Internet connectivity in different parts of the world, as recently mentioned by techradar.
Wide Area Networks, or WANs, are the global backbone of today's Internet (Shutterstock)
Use of algorithms
To avoid these problems, scientists from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently came up with a way to preserve the network when fiber optics fail and significantly reduce the cost of restarting.
Their system, called ARROW, reconfigures optical light from damaged fibers to healthy ones, using a special online algorithm to proactively plan the replacement of potentially damaged or damaged fibers based on real-time Internet traffic requirements, the university's platform said. In a recent report on this exciting innovation.
The report stated that "Arrow" was built and designed by integrating two different methods: the first is "traffic engineering during downtime", a technology that directs traffic to where bandwidth resources are located during fiber cutting or being damaged, and the second is "length reconfiguration". waveform”, which recovers idle bandwidth resources by reconfiguring light.
To achieve this powerful combination of the two methods, the team created a new algorithm that can essentially generate special "lottery tickets" to solve the problem of "wavelength reshaping" on optical fibers to work in tandem with an "optical recovery method" that transmits light from the cut fiber to the fiber This system also takes into account real-time traffic to improve maximum network throughput.
By using large-scale simulations, Arrow can carry much more traffic without the need to deploy new fibers, while maintaining network reliability.
There is no place for failure
“We can use this system (Arrow) to provide service, and enhance the resilience of the Internet infrastructure in the event of a fiber outage,” says Zhizhen Zhong, principal investigator and team leader. “It renews the way we think about the relationship between failures and network management.”
He adds that disruptions and internet outages were previously inevitable events, where disruption meant failure, and there was no way to overcome it, but by using this system we are able to overcome many fiber outages, restore connection and scale failure, and this changes the way we think about managing The network, which opens opportunities to rethink traffic engineering systems and risk assessment systems, as well as emerging applications.
The One Network connects billions of computers across continents to form the basis of modern online services (Getty Images)
The network is no longer a static entity
In traditional systems, network engineers would have previously decided how much capacity should be provided in the physical layer of the network. It may seem impossible to change the network topology without actually changing the cabling, but because light waves can be redirected using tiny mirrors, they are able to make rapid changes You do not need re-wiring.
This is a world in which the network is no longer a static entity, but rather a dynamic structure of interconnections that may change depending on the workload.
In order to imagine the capabilities of the new system and the revolutionary change it has brought about, let us imagine a virtual subway system, where some trains may break down from time to time, and the subway controller wants to plan how to distribute passengers on alternative routes taking into account other operating trains and traffic continuity, using “Arrow” When a train breaks down, the console announces to passengers the best alternative ways to reduce their travel time and avoid congestion.
A revolution in the way we think about the network
“Our long-term goal is to make large-scale computer networks more efficient, and to develop smart networks that adapt to data and applications,” says MIT professor Manya Ghobadi, who supervised the work. A revolution in the way we think about the network, as doing this research requires breaking the traditional rules that were created many years ago and still control the network today.”
To move the system from the study and research phase to the actual application in the real world, the team is currently collaborating with Facebook, and we hope to work with other service providers on a large scale in the near future.
In turn, Ying Zhang, director of software engineering at Facebook, says, "We are excited that there will be many practical challenges in the future to bring Arrow's research lab ideas into the real world, serving billions of people around the world, and reducing network outages, and we hope that Arrow makes The Internet is more resilient and sustainable in the near future."