For Immediate Release
March 25, 1998
NTT to Release Technological Specifications on
Next-Generation Computer Network Architecture
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) on March 25 will begin publicly releasing technological specifications of connectionless networking technologies for Global Mega-media Networks (GMN-CL), which is expected to provide enhanced high-speed cost-effective services. The specifications can be accessed at http://www.gmncl.ecl.ntt.co.jp/ (see figure 1).Due to rapid increases in business information and networking, as well as the use of intranets and the Internet, needs are increasing for value-added services such as quality-of-service (QoS) control and virtual private networks (VPN). At the same time, needs for low-cost, 24-hour Internet access services are also increasing, particularly among small offices and home offices (SOHOs) .
GMN-CL technologies will help meet these needs by providing scalable architecture to serve as the foundation for engineering and managing networks. It also represents the first step in NTT's Mega-media Plan, one of the corporation's three basic initiatives for realizing, by the year 2005, broadband multimedia services that will transmit up to 10 megabits of information in one second for the low monthly cost of ¥10,000.
In the Internet, using autonomous decentralized control has a relatively high tolerance against breakdowns, because each router autonomously resolves the next hop addresses. But this method requires that routing information be distributed to all routers, so packet- forwarding capability decreases as service function increases. Also reconfigurating routers and finding and analyzing of trouble tend to become complicated (see figure 2).
In order to solve these problems, the GMN-CL technologies separate the packet-forwarding and routing functions of routers. This architecture can provide high transfer performance because decentralized control is used for address resolution of packet-forwarding and centralized management technology is used for routing (see figures 3 and 4). Also, addresses are tied to geographical information for routing, which allows backbone networks to function optimally.
The scalable structure of GMN-CL based networks can be flexibly adapted to large networks. In addition, the architecture assures compatibility with the Internet applications, so users will be able to use a variety of new services without having to change their computer systems.
NTT is releasing technological specifications on the GMN-CL to promote rapid adoption by telecommunications device makers. The corporation is preparing to conduct pilot tests by this fall.
