The fascinating story of TCP/IP

Some people are fascinated by history. They subscribe to cable TV just to get the History Channel. If you’re one of those history buffs, you may be interested in the following chronicle of TCP/IP’s humble origins. (For maximum effect, play some melancholy violin music in the background as you read the rest of this sidebar.)

In the summer of 1969, the four mop-topped singers from Liverpool were breaking up. The war in Vietnam was escalating. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. And the Department of Defense built a computer network called ARPANET to link its defense installations with several major universities throughout the United States.

By the early 1970s, ARPANET was becoming difficult to manage. So it was split into two networks: one for military use, called MILNET, and the other for nonmilitary use. The nonmilitary network retained the name ARPANET. To link MILNET with ARPANET, a new method of connecting networks, called Internet Protocol or just IP for short, was invented. The whole purpose of IP was to enable these two networks to communicate with each other.

Fortunately, the designers of IP realized that it wouldn’t be too long before other networks wanted to join in the fun, so they designed IP to allow for more than two networks. In fact, their ingenious design allowed for tens of thousands of networks to communicate via IP. The decision was a fortuitous one, as the Internet quickly began to grow. By the mid-1980s, the original ARPANET reached its limits. Just in time, the National Science Foundation (NSF) decided to get into the game. NSF had built a network called NSFNET to link its huge supercomputers.

NSFNET replaced ARPANET as the new background for the Internet. Around that time, such magazines as Time and Newsweek began writing articles about this new phenomenon called the Internet, and the Net (as it became nicknamed) began to grow like wildfire. Soon NSFNET couldn’t keep up with the growth, so several private commercial networks took over management of the Internet backbone. The Internet has grown at a dizzying rate ever since, and nobody knows how long this frenetic growth rate will continue. One thing is sure: TCP/IP is now the most popular networking protocol in the world.

IEEE 802.3ba standard released - 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet become reality!

EEE announced the ratification of IEEE 802.3ba 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet, a new standard governing 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s Ethernet operations. An amendment to the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard, IEEE 802.3ba, the first standard ever to simultaneously specify two new Ethernet speeds, paves the way for the next generation of high-rate server connectivity and core switching.

The IEEE 802.3ba standard, ratified June 17, 2010, addresses critical challenges facing technology providers today, such as the growing number of applications with demonstrated bandwidth needs far exceeding existing Ethernet capabilities, by providing a larger, more durable bandwidth pipeline. Furthermore, collaboration between the IEEE P802.3ba 40Gb/s and 100Gb/s Ethernet Task Force and the International Telecommunication Union’s Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 15 ensures these new Ethernet rates are transportable over optical transport networks.

The new standard will act as the catalyst needed for unlocking innovation across the greater Ethernet ecosystem. IEEE 802.3ba is expected to trigger further expansion of the 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet family of technologies by driving new development efforts, as well as providing new aggregation speeds that will enable 10 Gb/s Ethernet network deployments.

The standard’s ratification also dovetails into efforts aimed at delivering greater broadband access, such as the U.S. Federal Communication Commission’s “Connecting America” National Broadband Plan, which calls for 100 Mb/s access for a minimum of 100 million homes across the U.S.

In addition to providing an increased bandwidth pipeline, IEEE 802.3ba remains compatible with existing IEEE 802.3 installations, thereby preserving significant industry investment in the technology. The new standard is also expected to generate concrete benefits, such as lowered operating expense costs and improved energy efficiencies, by simplifying complex link aggregation schema commonly used in today’s network architectures.

Key stakeholders for IEEE 802.3ba include users and producers of systems and components for servers, network storage, networking systems, high-performance computing, data centers, telecommunications carriers, and multiple system operators (MSOs).

“Ubiquitous adoption of bandwidth-intensive technologies and applications, such as converged network services, video-on-demand, and social networking, is producing rapidly increasing demand for higher-rate throughput. As mass-market access to these technologies continues accelerating, coupled with today’s progressively more powerful server architectures, data centers, network providers and end-users alike are finding themselves confronted by pressing bandwidth bottlenecks,” said John D’Ambrosia, Chair, IEEE P802.3ba Task Force, and Director, Ethernet-based Standards, CTO Office, Force10 Networks. “IEEE 802.3ba will eliminate these bottlenecks by providing a robust, scalable architecture for meeting current bandwidth requirements and laying a solid foundation for future Ethernet speed increases.”

(Reference:http://www.net-security.org)

Oxford Dictionary of Medical Qoutations #2

"There is no short cut, nor ‘royal road’ to the attainment of medical knowledge"


- John Abernethy (1764-1831) English Surgeon, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London

Doa Rasululah - Memerdekakan diri dari hutang piutang

Abu Said Al-Khudhri radhiyallahu ’anhu berkata: “Pada suatu hari Rasulullah shollallahu ’alaih wa sallam masuk ke dalam masjid. Tiba-tiba ada seorang sahabat bernama Abu Umamah radhiyallahu ’anhu sedang duduk di sana. Beliau bertanya: ”Wahai Abu Umamah, kenapa aku melihat kau sedang duduk di luar waktu sholat?” Ia menjawab: ”Aku bingung memikirkan hutangku, wahai Rasulullah.” Beliau bertanya: ”Mahukah aku ajarkan kepadamu sebuah do’a yang apabila kau baca maka Allah ta’aala akan menghilangkan kebingunganmu dan melunasi hutangmu?” Ia menjawab: "Tentu, wahai Rasulullah.” Beliau bersabda,”Jika kau berada di waktu pagi mahupun petang hari, bacalah do’a:


“Allahumma innii a-’udzu...bika minal hammi wal hazani, wa a-’udzubika minal’ajzi wal kasali, wa a-’udzubika minal jubni wal bukhli, wa a-’udzubika minal ghalabatiddiini wa qahri-rrijaal.”

"Ya Allah, sesungguhnya aku berlindung kepada Engkau dari bingung dan sedih. Aku berlindung kepada Engkau dari lemah dan malas. Aku berlindung kepada Engkau dari pengecut dan kikir. Dan aku berlindung kepada Engkau dari lilitan hutang dan kesewenang-wenangan manusia.” Kata Abu Umamah radhiyallahu ’anhu: ”Setelah membaca do’a tersebut, Allah berkenan menghilangkan kebingunganku dan membayarkan lunas hutangku.” (HR Abu Dawud 4/353)