The origin of network technology

Network technology is a new technology developed from/kloc-0 to the mid-1990s. It integrates the scattered resources on the Internet into an organic whole, realizes the comprehensive enjoyment and organic cooperation of resources, and enables people to use the overall capacity of resources transparently and obtain information on demand. Resources include high-performance computers, storage resources, data resources, information resources, knowledge resources, expert resources, large databases, networks, sensors and so on.

At present, the internet is limited to the enjoyment of information, and the network is considered to be the third stage of the development of the internet. Network can build regional network, enterprise intranet, local area network, even home network and personal network. The fundamental feature of the network is not necessarily the scale, but the enjoyment of resources and the elimination of resource islands. Nanfeng charity academy

Network technology has great application potential. It can mobilize millions of computers to complete a certain computing task at the same time, and gather the efforts of thousands of scientists to complete the same scientific experiment, so that people distributed all over the world can realize face-to-face communication in a virtual environment.

The Development Course of Network Technology

Network research originated from the high-performance computing research project funded by the US government in the past decade. The goal of this research is to integrate many trans-regional high-performance computers, large databases, large scientific research equipment, communication equipment, visualization equipment and various sensors into a huge supercomputer system to support scientific calculation and research. Nanfeng charity academy

Microsoft focuses on the development of data network, focusing on the use of the network to enjoy information, rather than the computing power of the network, which reflects the differences between academic and research fields. In fact, many network technologies used in academic fields can become commercial applications.

Globus is a network technology research and development project of Argonne National Laboratory in the United States, and two universities and research institutions in the United States 12 participated in the project. Globus studies the key theories of network computing, such as resource management, security, information service and data management, develops network computing tools and software that can run on various platforms, helps to plan and build large-scale network test platforms, and develops large-scale applications suitable for large-scale network systems. At present, Globus technology has been applied in eight projects, including NASA network, European data network and American national technology network. In August, 2005, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) announced that it had invested billions of dollars in research and development of network computing, and cooperated with Globus to develop an open network computing standard, claiming that the value of the network is not limited to scientific computing, but also has a good commercial application prospect. Network computing and Globus have received unprecedented attention from behind the scenes to the foreground. Nanfeng charity academy

China attaches great importance to the development of network technology. The National Network Project of China supported by the 863 Program "High Performance Computer and Its Core Software" has made innovative achievements in high performance computer, network software, network environment and application. China National Network, a network test bed with 18 trillion computing power and supporting network research and application, was officially put into operation on February 2, 2005. This means that through network technology, China has been able to effectively integrate the computing resources of large computers across the country and form a powerful computing platform to help scientific research units and scientific and technological workers realize the sharing and cooperation of computing resources and data.

Network key technology

The key technologies of network include network nodes, broadband network system, resource management and task scheduling tools, and visualization tools of application layer. Network nodes are providers of network computing resources, including high-end servers, cluster systems, MPP system large storage devices, databases and so on. Broadband network system is a necessary means to provide high-performance communication in network computing environment. Resource management and task scheduling tools are used to solve key problems such as resource description, organization and management. The task scheduling tool dynamically schedules tasks in the system according to the current system load, thus improving the operating efficiency of the system. Network computing is mainly scientific computing, often accompanied by massive data. If the calculation results are converted into intuitive graphic information, it can help researchers get rid of the difficulty of understanding the data. This requires the development of visual tools that can be transmitted and read in network computing, and provides a friendly user interface.

Research Status of Network Technology

Network computing usually focuses on large-scale application projects. According to Globus technology, large-scale application projects should be completed by multiple organizations, which form a "virtual organization", and the computing resources owned by each organization are shared in the virtual organization to complete the project together. For the enjoyment of * * *, what is valuable is not the device itself but the interface or interface of the entity. Nanfeng charity academy

From a technical point of view, * * * sharing is the interoperability between resources or entities. The setting of Globus technology and interoperability in the network environment mean that it is necessary to formulate a set of general protocols to describe the message format and the rules of message exchange. On top of the protocol, a series of services need to be developed, which is the same as the principle of World Wide Web services based on TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). Define application programming interfaces in services, and then build software development tools based on these interfaces.

Globus network computing protocol is based on Internet protocol, which is based on the functions of communication, routing and name resolution. Globus protocol is divided into five layers: construction layer, connection layer, resource layer, collection layer and application layer. Each layer has its own services, application programming interfaces and software development tools, and the upper protocol calls the services of the lower protocol. All global applications in the network need to call the operating system through the services provided by the protocol.

The function of the structure layer is to provide available resources to * * * in the network, which is a physical or logical entity. Common * * * resources include processing power, storage systems, directories, network resources, distributed file systems, distributed computer pools, computer clusters and so on. Connection layer is the core protocol of network transaction communication and authorization control in the network. The data exchange between resources submitted by the construction layer is realized under the control of this layer. Authorization verification and security control between resources are also realized here. The function of the resource layer is to control a single resource, safely shake hands with available resources, initialize resources, monitor the running status of resources, and count the resource usage data related to payment. The role of the aggregation layer is to aggregate the controlled resources submitted by the resource layer for the application of the virtual organization to enjoy and call. In order to manage and control the enjoyment from applications, the aggregation layer provides directory services, resource allocation, scheduling, resource agency, resource monitoring and diagnosis, network startup, load control, account management and other functions. The application layer is the user's application program on the network. It first calls the corresponding services through the application programming interfaces at all levels, and then calls the resources on the network through the services to complete the task. The development of application involves a large number of library functions. In order to facilitate the development of network applications, it is necessary to construct a library function that supports network computing.

At present, Globus architecture has been adopted by some large networks. Based on Globus network computing, researchers have developed some applications in weather forecasting, high-energy physics experiments, aircraft research and other fields. Although these applications are still in the experimental stage, it proves that network computing can complete many large-scale application tasks that supercomputers are not competent for. It can be predicted that network technology will soon set off the next wave of the Internet. Facing the coming application of the third generation Internet, many developed countries have invested a lot of research funds, hoping to seize the opportunity and grasp the future destiny. Nanfeng charity academy

China has also increased its investment in the Internet. Computing Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences named its own network Vega Grid, with the goal of large-scale data processing, high-performance computing, resource sharing and improving resource utilization. Compared with other network research projects at home and abroad, the biggest feature of Vega Network is "service network". Many industries in China, such as energy, transportation, meteorology, water conservancy, agriculture and forestry, education and environmental protection, have great demand for high-performance computing networks, that is, information networks. It is expected that in the last two or three years, we will see more application examples of network technology.

Application field of network technology

Network technology has a wide range of applications, mainly in the following aspects.

Distributed Supercomputing Distributed Supercomputing connects supercomputers distributed in different places with high-speed networks and "binds" them with network middleware software to form a computing platform much more powerful than a single supercomputer.

Distributed instrument system The distributed instrument system uses the network to manage valuable instrument systems distributed all over the country, provides a means of remote access to instruments and equipment, improves the utilization rate of instruments and is convenient for users.

Data-intensive parallel computing technology is often promoted by some computing-intensive applications, especially those with great challenges, which greatly promotes the research in high-performance parallel architecture, programming environment, large-scale visualization and other fields. The application of data-intensive computing is much more intensive than computing, and its corresponding data network focuses more on data storage, transmission and processing, while computing network focuses more on the improvement of computing power. The leading project in this field is the DataGrid project carried out by CERN, whose goal is to process the PB/s experimental data continuously generated by the Large Hadron Collider built in 2005. Nanfeng charity academy

Remote Immersion This is a special networked virtual reality environment. It is a true reflection of reality or history, and visualizes high-performance calculation results or databases. "Immersion" means that people can be completely integrated into it: participants from all over the world gather in the same virtual space through the network, and they can roam freely, communicate with each other and interact with the virtual environment to make it change. At present, dozens of remote immersive applications have been developed, including virtual history museums and collaborative learning environments. Remote immersion can be widely used in interactive scientific visualization, education, training, art, entertainment, industrial design, information visualization and many other fields.

Information integration network first appeared as an integrated heterogeneous computing platform, and later entered the field of distributed mass data processing. Information network provides users with "information available at any time" service through a unified information exchange architecture and a large number of middleware. Network information integration will be more used in business, and applications and various information distributed all over the world can be seamlessly integrated and exchanged through the network, thus forming brand-new business opportunities.

Information integration such as information network, service network and knowledge network is the hot direction of network application in recent years. In 2002, Globus Alliance and IBM released the open network service architecture and its detailed specifications at the global network forum, which combined Globus standard with commercial World Wide Web service standard. In 2004, Globus Alliance, IBM and Hewlett-Packard jointly issued a new draft network standard, which transformed the detailed specification I of the open network service architecture into six specifications for expanding the World Wide Web service. The network service has been completely integrated with the World Wide Web service, marking the arrival of the era of network commercialization. Nanfeng charity academy

Standards are the key to the development of network technology. Just as TCP/IP protocol is the core of Internet, building network computing also needs to define core standard protocols and services. At present, some standardization organizations are taking active actions. So far, although there is no formal standard for network computing, relevant institutions and enterprises have reached an agreement on the core technologies. Globus computing tool software developed by Argonne National Laboratory and School of Information Science, University of Southern California has become the actual standard of network computing, and 65,438+02 famous computer and software manufacturers have announced that they will adopt Globus computing tool software. As an open architecture and open standard infrastructure, Globus computing tool software provides many basic services needed to build network applications, such as security, resource discovery, resource management, data access and so on. At present, all major network projects are based on the protocols and services provided by Globus computing tool software.

In addition to standards, security, manageability and lack of talents are also problems that need to be solved urgently in network computing, otherwise it will not become the business framework of enterprises. There are still many problems to be solved before commercial application can be realized. Even so, the prospect of building a global network is irresistible.