Q&A

What do SAIL mean with “Networks of the Future” as opposed to other earlier EU-research projects?
The key aspect is that SAIL is about ”transition to”, not ”clean-slate / green-field deployment”. Clean slate meaning that everything that exists today should be thrown away and we start to design again from the beginning. We are gonna take internet as is to today and we´re gonna take IP and Ethernet as is today and develop technologies to take us forward towards a new network. We are gonna take internet and improve it!

How will you improve internet? Doesnt it work?
It works, but it is rather static today. I´ll try to examplify:

- Allocating computing resources on-demand: We are gonna bring the concepts of ”on-demand allocation” into networks and manage variable demand for networking as well as computing resources. As analogy, compare e.g. how rental-car pools, hotel nights, and bikes for loan in a city center works. They are all examples of “as-a-Service” facilities (Car_aaS, Bed_aaS, Transport/recreation_aaS)

Can you exemplify what is behind the SAIL concepts of Network of Information, Cloud Networking, and Open Connectivity Services ?

  • Cloud Networking: The sustainability aspects (“Green networks”): You don´t waste resources and you pay only for what you use.
  • Network of Information: Furthermore, we are all familiar with the challenges of searching for relevant content on the net, and to differ between similar matches of the same search item. Imagine e.g. a situation where you search for a specific U2-song. The technologies we are developing will allow you to identify the same content encoded in different ways and still be able to know that it is exaclty the same content – just different packaging! Another angle of the above scenario is that you only get the song from the closest location if the song is available at multiple places.
  • Open Connectivity Services: We will also provide connectivity at the IP and Ethernet level with enhanced features such as multi-point to multi-point connections. These features will allow us to connect the pieces of this architeture together in a efficient way – on demand.
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