Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) are ready to make a significant change by moving to a higher-speed networking hardware. According to a recent article by Cade Metz for Wired, both companies are enhancing their networks to make room for their extra traffic that flows between servers.
Donn Lee, networking expert, expects a new generation of networking gear inside data centers. Unlike some of the gear inside centers, this one will feature gear that sends data as a beam of light energy.
Metz reminds us that some internet data already travels as light and it’s called optical networking. This works by sending electrical signals that are then transformed into protons, then are sent down racing line of glass fiber. This is something that usually happens over the connections which transport information between data centers. It also happens sparingly.
What’s next is to rebuild the data centers networks and keep the focus on optics. It’s suggested that they pair traditional electric networking switches with optical switches in hopes to speed up the process.
George Papen, the University of California in San Diego’s optical researcher, explained “If we can do this, the scaling properties of this kind of hybrid network — how the network scales up to accommodate more data traffic — is very attractive.”
Papen added that although we’re not quite there yet, we are certainly close. He would know as he is part of the UCSD team have already built test networks in order to demonstrate optical switching. This project, which is often referred to at Helios, is funded by Google along with other tech companies. Aman Vahdat, was actively working on a similar project before going on leave at Google Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and another one of their team members(Nathan Farrington) joined Facebook.
Big changes are coming to technology.