The Internet history Essay Example for Free

The Internet history Essay The Internet is a network of networks joining many computers together hence providing means for transportation of data and messages across distances and an infrastructure for the use of E-mail, bulletin boards, file archives, hypertext documents, databases and other resources. (Roberts, 1967) The history of the internet began way back in 1973 when the U. S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate the techniques and technologies for interlinking packet networks of various kinds. The main aim of the research was to develop communication protocols which would allow computers that have been networked to communicate transparently across different multiple linked packet networks. This project was called Internetting and the system of networks which emerged from this research done was called the Internet. Hence the protocols which were developed over this research project are known as the TCP/IP Protocol Suite that is the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). (Dingel, Dutta, Odlyzko, and Sato, 2003). In 1980 to 1981 two other networking projects BITNET (Because Its Time Network) and CSNET were initiated. BITNET adopted the IBM RSCS protocol suite and featured a direct leased line connection between participating sites. The original BITNET connections linked IBM mainframes in university data centers and this rapidly changed as protocol implementations became available for other machines. BITNET has been multi disciplinary in nature with users in all academic areas that also provided a number of unique services to its users. BITNET has established a backbone which uses the TCP/IP protocols with RSCS-based applications running above TCP protocols. By 1985, Internet was already well established as a technology supporting a broad community of researchers and developers, and was beginning to be used by other communities for daily computer communications. Electronic mail was being used broadly across several communities, often with different systems, but interconnection between different mail systems was demonstrating the utility of broad based electronic communications between people. The Internet technology was being experimentally validated and widely used among a subset of computer science researchers, other networks and networking technologies were being pursued. The usefulness of computer networking was demonstrated by DARPA and Department of Defense contractors. (Licklider and Clark, 1962) With the exception of BITNET and USENET, these early networks were intended for closed communities of scholars and hence little pressure for the individual networks to be compatible. In addition there were alternate technologies were being pursued in the commercial sector including XNS from Xerox, DECNet, and IBMs SNA. It remained for the UK’s National Research and Education Network called JANET and U. S. NSFNET programs to explicitly announce their intent to serve the entire higher education community. In 1985 the NSFNET program was started to support wide area networking. The wide area networking infrastructure supports the general academic and research community with the need to develop a strategy that establish such infrastructure. CSNET (Computer Science Network) was initially funded by the National Science Foundation to provide networking for university, industry and government computer science research groups. (Kleinrock, 1964) The CSNET used the Phonenet MMDF protocol for telephone based electronic mail relaying and also pioneered the first use of TCP/IP using commercial public data networks. The CSNET name server provided an early example of a white pages directory service that is still in use at numerous sites. CSNET had approximately two hundred participating sites and international connections to approximately more than fifteen countries at its peak. (Kleinrock, 1976) BITNET and CSNET merged to form the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN) in 1987. By 1991, CSNET service was discontinued having fulfilled its important early role in the provision of academic networking service throughout many academic and government organizations. The U. S.National Science Foundation developed NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) in 1986 today provides a major backbone communication service for the Internet. The NSFNET has 45 megabit per second facilities that carries 12 billion packets per month between the networks it links. Also, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U. S. Department of Energy and National Science Foundation contributed additional backbone facilities that became heavily involved in internet research and started development of a successor to Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET). These branches developed the first Wide Area Networks based on TCP/IP Protocol suite. (Coffman and Odlyzko, 2002) Between 1986 and 1988 the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CERN) began installation and operation of TCP/IP to interconnect its major internal computer systems and workstations. They continued to operate a limited self-developed system CERNET internally and several incompatible network protocols externally. There was considerable resistance in Europe towards more widespread use of TCP/IP but many commercial network providers in the U. S. and Europe are begun to offer Internet backbone and access support on a competitive basis to any interested parties. By 1989, Australian universities joined the push towards using IP protocols to unify their networking infrastructures and thus the AARNet was formed by the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee and provided a dedicated IP based network for Australia. During the evolution of internet particularly after 1989, it began to integrate support for other protocol suites into its network backbone. The emphasis in the present internet system is on multiprotocol interworking particularly with the integration of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocols into the architecture. The public domain and commercial implementations of 100 protocols of TCP/IP protocol suite became in existence for both domains. In the early 1990s the OSI protocol implementations also became available and by 1991 the Internet had grown to over five thousand networks in more than three dozen countries and serving over seven thousand host computers used by over four million people. (Coffman and Odlyzko, 1998) A great deal of support for the Internet community has come from the U. S. Federal Government since the Internet was originally part of a federally funded research program and subsequently it has become a major part of the U. S. research infrastructure. In over fifteen year of history, the Internet has functioned as a tool for collaboration among cooperating parties. Some certain key functions have been critical for its operation and by which is the specification of the protocols which the components of the system operate. These were originally developed in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency research program mentioned, but in the last five years the work has been undertaken on a wider basis with support from Government agencies in many countries, industry and the academic community. The Internet Activities Board (IAB) was created in 1983 to guide the evolution of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite and to provide research advice to the Internet community. The two primary components that make up the internet activities board are the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Research Task Force. The primary responsibility for further evolution of the TCP/IP protocol suite is its standardization with the concurrence of the Internet Activities Board and the integration of other protocols into Internet operation. The Internet Research Task Force continues to organize and explore advanced concepts in networking under the guidance of the Internet Activities Board and with support from various government agencies. A current trend with major implications for the future is the growth of high speed connections in the internet. The internet networks has now gone wireless and has grown rapidly in the past few years such as the use of wi-fi hot spots where one can connect while they are away from the home or office and access the internet. The networks have come along way from using cable to wireless networks hence results to wireless internet access through hot spots. In conclusion the internet has gone wireless now and there is a high demand and usage for internet from the past history. This wireless trend has begun to affect web designers is the growth of smaller devices to connect to the Internet. The Small tablets, pocket Personal Computers, smart phones and even Global Positioning System devices are now capable of tapping into the web and many web pages are now designed to work on that scale. (Cerf and Kahn, 1974). Reference: Cerf, V. Kahn, R. (1974): A protocol for packet network interconnection- IEEE Trans. Comm. Tech. , Vol 5, pp. 598-643 Coffman, K. and Odlyzko, M. (1998): The size and growth rate of the Internet, First Monday 3(10) pp 23-30 Coffman, G. Odlyzko, M. (2002): Growth of the Internet, In Optical Fiber Telecommunications IV B- Systems and Impairments, Academic Press, pp.17-56 Dingel W. , Dutta, K. Odlyzko, M. and Sato, I. (2003): Internet traffic growth- Sources and implications, Optical Transmission Systems and Equipment for WDM Networking II, Vol. 5247, pp. 5-14 Kleinrock, L. (1964): Communication Nets-Stochastic Message Flow and Delay, New York, McGraw-Hill, pp 79-98 Kleinrock, L. (1976): Queueing Systems- Computer Applications, Vol II, New York, John Wiley and Sons, pp 55-98 Licklider, J. and Clark, W. (1962): On-Line Man Computer Communication, pp 43-47 Roberts L (1967): Multiple Computer Networks Intercomputer Communication. ACM Gatlinburg Conf, pp 38-78.