The contents of this legacy page are no longer maintained nor supported, and are made available only for historical purposes.
NSFNET: Internet Atlas Gallery
NSFNET growth until 1995
Donna Cox and Robert Patterson
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA),
National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu
NSFNET was a series of networks coordinated by NFS, created to
serve research and education purposes. Based on ARPANET protocols,
NFSNET served as the backbone of a growing internet up until April 1995.
The role of the backbone has since been handed over to several commercial
carriers, dissolving the notion of a single national Internet backbone.
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Analysis |
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Additional Content
NSFNET growth until 1995
Donna Cox and Robert Patterson
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA),
National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu
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Credits / Contact Info |
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Authors:
- Donna Cox
- Robert Patterson
- NCSA
- Data provided by:
- Merit Network, Inc.
- NCAR
- NASA JPL
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Contact Info:
For further information, send email to:
media@ncsa.uiuc.edu
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Additional Media:
Video depicting two year's of growth of NSFNET (1992-94?)
using this visualization:
QuickTime Movie
MPEG Movie
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NSFNET growth until 1995
Donna Cox and Robert Patterson
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA),
National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu
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Data |
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Data Sources:
(Source1): Traffic bandwidth in bytes passing through each of the
backbone nodes was provided by Merit Network, Inc., NCAR, and NASA JPL.
During December 1994, total inbound traffic on the backbone was 18.5 trillion bytes.
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Data Aggregation:
(Aggregate1): Networks that exist in the same city and report
to the same backbone node are aggregated into a single
colored line. During December 1994, (for byte traffic into the
ANS/NSFNET T3 backbone from its
client networks), 24,435 domestic client
networks were aggregated into 12,177 virtual traffic connections.
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Data Filters:
(Filter1): Intermediate connections are removed so that only a
hypothetical direct connection between each node of the backbone and all of
its clients is displayed.
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NSFNET growth until 1995
Donna Cox and Robert Patterson
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA),
National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu
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Evaluation |
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Strengths:
(Strength1):
Visualization stresses the hierarchy of connections between backbone systems.
Backbone nodes are prominently displayed above the geographical map,
with all their respective clients below.
(Strength2): High level connectivity is readily perceivable
when separated from the clutter of backbone-client connections.
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Issues:
(Issue1): Only aggregated clients are displayed, and specific paths
from backbone nodes to their clients are not known, therefore
distances shown between the backbone and client nodes may be misleading.
(Issue2): Many backbone nodes serve distant clients across
the continental US. This logical connectivity blurs attempts to
correlate traffic with the geographical organization of the
backbone and client nodes. While high connectivity is depicted,
the visualization tends to be extremely busy and at
times difficult to interpret.
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NSFNET growth until 1995
Donna Cox and Robert Patterson
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA),
National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL: http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu
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About the Visualization |
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Visualization Techniques:
(Technique1): Backbone nodes are elevated above the geographical
map to imply that all data transfer must first travel up to the backbone,
then back down to its final destination elsewhere on the map.
Backbone nodes are also represented as red spheres at their geographic position
on the map of the USA.
Client nodes appear as white spheres placed geographically on the map.
(Technique2): Each line between the backbone nodes and their
clients indicates geographical location as well as traffic volume.
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Key Visualization Mappings:
(Mapping1): Connections are colored by volume of traffic,
according to the color key below the image. Purple lines show the
least traffic while white lines show the most.
(Mapping2): Node type is depicted by color.
Red spheres represent backbone nodes. White spheres
represent clients.
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