10 May 2016, USA :
Facebook announced a new software platform called Open/R to tackle that problem. The platform serves as a foundation for all the software running on Terragraph’s various hardware units, and gives developers crucial flexibility in changing that software on the fly. Open/R can’t solve Terragraph’s complex routing problems by itself, but it offers a framework for testing out new routing programs faster and more effectively. Facebook hopes that Open/R’s flexibility will give Terragraph a head start in figuring out how to move data through such an unpredictable network.
Omar Maldonado, who handles software engineering for Facebook’s networking team said, “Most routing protocols are about basic connectivity in a fixed wired network.” “How do you handle varying rate conditions? Weather or other obstructions can change the amount of bandwidth you have very quickly. That’s not something routing protocols in the past have been built to handle.”
Gigabit Wi-Fi uses higher frequencies to send data through the air at rates as high as 7 Gbit/s. But that speed comes with a price. The smaller waves are easily absorbed by moisture or flying objects, so any single link could degrade or drop out at any time. Since a given connection might rely on half a dozen different links, shepherding data through the system requires routing programs that can make smart decisions at almost instantaneous speeds.
Source : theverge.com
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