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A backbone network or network backbone is a part of computer network infrastructure that interconnects various pieces of network, providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or sub networks. A backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same building, in different buildings in a campus environment, or over wide areas. Normally, the backbone's capacity is greater than the networks connected to it.
A large corporation that has many locations may have a backbone network that ties all of the locations together, for example, if a server cluster needs to be accessed by different departments of a company that are located at different geographical locations. The pieces of the network connections (for example: ethernet, wireless) that bring these departments together is often mentioned as network backbone. Network congestion is often taken into consideration while designing backbones.
The Internet backbone refers to the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected networks and core routers in the Internet. These data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity network centres, the Internet exchange points and network access points, which interchange Internet traffic between the countries, continents and across the oceans of the world.
History • The first high speed backbone was created by the National Science Foundation in 1987. It was called the NSFNET, and was a T1 line that connected 170 smaller networks together. The following year, IBM, MCI and Merit would create a T3 backbone. In the early days of the internet, backbone providers exchanged their traffic at government-sponsored network access points, until the government privatized the internet, and then transferred the NAPs to commercial providers.
Architectural principles • The Internet, and consequently its backbone networks, does not rely on central control or coordinating facilities, nor do they implement any global network policies. The resilience of the Internet results from its principal architectural features, most notably the idea of placing as few network state and control functions as possible in the network elements, but instead relying on the endpoints of communication to handle most of the processing to ensure data integrity, reliability, and authentication.
Architectural principles • In addition, the high degree of redundancy of today's network links and sophisticated real-time routing protocols provide alternate paths of communications for load balancing and congestion avoidance.
Infrastructure • The internet backbone is a conglomeration of multiple, redundant networks owned by numerous companies. It is typically a fibre optic trunk line. The trunk line consists of many fibre optic cables bundled together to increase the capacity. The backbone is able to reroute traffic in case of a failure. The data speeds of backbone lines have changed with the times.
Infrastructure • In 1998, all of the United States backbone networks had utilized the slowest data rate of 45 Mbit/s. However the changing technologies allowed for 41 percent of backbones to have data rates of 2,488 Mbit/s or faster by the mid 2000's. The FCC currently defines "high speed" as any connection with data speeds that exceed 200 kilobits per second.
Infrastructure • An Azerbaijani based telecommunication company, Delta Telecom, has recently developed a very efficient trunk line with possible speeds of to 1.6 terabits per second. Internet traffic from this line goes through the countries of Iran, Iraq and Georgia. Fibre-optic cables are the medium of choice for internet backbone providers for many reasons.
Infrastructure • Fibre-optics allow for fast data speeds and large bandwidth; they suffer relatively little attenuation, allowing them to cover long distances with few repeaters; they are also immune to crosstalk and other forms of EM interference which plague electrical transmission.
Modern backbone • Because of the enormous overlap between long distance telephone networks and the internet backbone networks, the largest long distance voice carriers such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint and Century Link also own some of the largest internet backbone networks. These backbone providers will then sell their services to ISPs. Each ISP has its own contingency backbone network, and at the very least, is equipped with an outsourced backup. These networks are intertwined and crisscrossed to create a redundant network.
Modern backbone • Many companies operate their own backbones, that are all interconnected at various IXPs around the world. In order for data to navigate through this diverse web that the backbone creates, backbone routers are needed. These backbone routers are routers that are powerful enough to handle information on the internet backbone, and they direct data to other routers in order to send it to its final destination. Without these backbone routers, information would be lost since data would not know how to locate its end destination.
Peering agreements • Backbone providers of roughly equivalent market share regularly create agreements called peering agreements. These agreements allow the use of another's network to hand off traffic where it is ultimately delivered. They usually do not charge each other for this use as they all get revenue from their customers regardless.
Transit agreements • Backbone providers of unequal market share usually create agreements called transit agreements, and usually contain some type of monetary agreement.
Regulation • Antitrust authorities have acted to ensure that no provider grows large enough to dominate the backbone market. The FCC has also decided not to monitor the competitive aspects of the Internet Backbone interconnection relationships, as long as the market continues to function well without regulation.
Members • KlarkMacedonio • Angelo Ramos • Vladimir Labiano • Sarrah Jane Cunanan • Kenneth Cube Paguio
