How Much Bandwidth Will the Average Person Use in 2019?
18GB, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, an annual compendium of mind-boggling (yet true) facts and projections about the electronic age. In 2014, global Internet traffic on a per capita basis came to 6GB per year. It will triple by 2019.
Some other intriguing numbers: IP traffic is growing at 23 percent per year. Broadband speeds, however, will only double between 2014 and 2019. That seems to imply that networks will need help from computing and storage on the edge. Metro and regional networks, meanwhile, are also taking traffic and congestion away from long-haul lines. There’s a lot to digest and it’s all pretty interesting. Check out the link.
Super Bowl 50 vs. the Social Media Masses
You may think the Super Bowl 50 is just about sports? Athletes? Halftime entertainment? Well, sure. But it’s also about data. And a lot of it. The local cell phone towers wouldn’t be able to handle the 76,000 fans texting, tweeting, updating, and selfie-posting. Silicon Valley’s stadium is one of the most technologically advanced stadiums to date, with 400 miles of fiber and copper cable and 1,200 Wi-Fi access points capable of handling up to 500 TB of data in about five hours. With a network strong enough for all 76,000 spectators to order food through the Super Bowl app, the Roman term “panem et circenses – Bread and Games” shines in a bright new light.
The Internet of Things Will Be the World’s Biggest Robot
Here’s a new term for the book – the World-Sized-Web (WSW). The WSW is what Bruce Schneier is calling the world-sized robot we’re creating, whether we know it or not. The Internet of Things is made up of sensors and actuators…because what’s the point of collecting all that data if you’re not doing anything with it, right? The sensors are the eyes and ears of the Internet, tracking our movements or identifying who’s in a room; and the actuators are the hands and feet of the Internet, rerouting autonomous cars around traffic or changing the temperature of the room to our preference. We can then think of the brain as everything else in the cloud. So, as we continue to collect, analyze and “act” on the data we gather from connect devices, are we really feeding a world-sized-robot?
34 Automotive Startups to Watch?
Why 34? We don’t know. Ask Junko Yoshida, a great writer behind this comprehensive piece on the growing market for automotive technology. Cars are one of the hot markets for embedded developers. Semiconductors and software can improve safety and optimize performance. You also don’t have to worry about battery life?
So what does this have to do with IT and data centers? Easy. Smart cars will effectively become clients on a network. Streaming dash cameras will change the way insurance companies set rates. The employees that manage maintenance and repairs for large car fleets will be monitoring their assets from the server room. If you’re in IT and not thinking of automotive, you’re driving with your eyes closed.
Microsoft is Experimenting With Underwater Data Centers
So where does all the data go once we generated it? While data centers are struggling with added operational costs like cooling, going underwater all together is certainly one way to keep cooling costs low. Microsoft just unveiled Project Natick, a nitrogen filled, subsea data center measuring 8’ in diameter, deployed off the coast of California. With annual data volumes growing to a projected 44ZB in 2018, and Moore’s law slowing, Microsoft is trying to provide a solution for both a cost-effective and environmentally friendly data center. These underwater data centers could be set up in 90 days, and because 1/2 the world’s population lives within 200 kilometers of the ocean, it’s an easy solution when extra capacity is needed. Our own Michael Kanelaos has covered tidal and wave power for years, he certainly has some concerns, not just when it comes to data leaks – see how he makes a splash.
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