Lesson 8: The Internet and Data Centers
Objectives:
From this lesson you should learn:
- How the Internet evolved from the phone network
-
Unique aspects of the Internet
-
How Internet data centers rely on fiber
The Internet began in the late 1960s as a US government data
communications network called ARPANET operating over the early digital
telephone network and morphed into the Internet we know today. The
Internet was designed to connect computers and computer networks to
transmit data and be survivable. The network architecture was similar to
the phone network. When the Internet started, data was sent over the
telecom network using phone protocols, but soon data traffic became
larger than voice traffic around the year 2000 and continued growing at
an accelerating pace. The telecom system essentially became a data
system and voice traffic migrated to voice over IP, handled like data.
Data centers are facilities that store and distribute the data on the
Internet. With an estimated 100 billion plus web pages on over 100
million websites and millions of videos available for streaming, data
centers contain a lot of data. With about five billion users accessing
all these websites, including a growing amount of high bandwidth video,
it’s hard to comprehend how much data is being uploaded and downloaded
every second on the Internet. (What some call "data centers" are really
computing facilities for Artificial Intelligence, a topic beyond the
scope of broadband communications.)
Student Assignment:
Read either of the references and take the
quiz.
Online FOA Reference:
The Internet
Data Centers
Book Chapter:
The Fiber Optic Association Guide To Broadband, Chapter 2
(Print Version)
Optional - Extra Credit (and future reference)
You Tube Video: Data Center Cabling
Test Your Knowledge:
- Next:
Lesson 9: Fiber Makes It Smart
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