Faster Cloud Applications

Today Alcatel-Lucent and BT tested a new Broadband system with speeds of 1.4 TeraBits; this was achieved between the BT Tower and a location in Ipswich, and while it may be some time before this technology filters down to the home and office market it is highly probable that it will end up in the main infrastructure of the Net and larger corporate organisations will make good use of this.

So how does this affect developers and system designers like us?

Already broadband line speeds have enabled Cloud computing with applications running at quite a reasonable speed. These applications tend to be quite small in terms of data foot print, with small chunks of data being transferred back and forth; particularly for mobile apps, desktop applications like Office 365 still have a noticeable lag.

Now larger applications will be able to run at desktop speeds. The big problem may end up being the desktop PC might actually be too slow for the amount of data being received and become the bottleneck.

It may lead to a whole new style of coding and system architects may have to rethink systems in light of this leap in speed and technology. While line speeds can increase there is a technical limit on how much data can be stuffed down a fibre optic cable or copper wire.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25840502 for details on the technology or for a more detailed review see this link.