Shocking Pink ([info]fionnghuala) wrote,
@ 2008-06-02 23:54:00
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Current mood: demanding

ARPAnetz

   Despite all the hype, technoscience is not the Greatest Story
   Ever Told, but it is playing powerfully to large, widely 
   distributed audiences.
- DH

Have just been reading Donna Haraway's thought-provoking thow-away comments (can that woman do no wrong?) about the implications of the internet originating in military contexts, then NSFnet and university contexts, etc, etc. And suddenly I realised, I have heard this ancient history story a million times, but I have no idea about the infrastructure of the internet right now. What computers does it run on? Who do they belong to? How is it funded? How come we hear tons about google and microsoft and gang their hold on the internet, but never anything about this material stuff?

Then I realised you wise lot on my friends list are sure to know the answers to these questions. So I am asking you...

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[info]fionnghuala
2008-06-04 04:34 pm UTC (link)
So the whole of the internet is run on relatively small scale servers, of which I am somewhat familiar from using university networks ?

---

To say: "this isn't a little known fact, because it's talked about in this very specialist media" doesn't make any sense ;)

That's like saying post-structuralist theory isn't obscure, because you have three books about it in your corridor that I lent you ages ago.

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[info]doctor_nemesis
2008-06-04 05:04 pm UTC (link)
Except that's not what I said at all. I said:

"It's not a hard to find fact, your just not sufficiently interested in finding it."

The internet is littered with well known technology sites, all containing articles about whose bought what and what people think MS and Google are up to with their long term server plans.

Major internet outfits have in fact thousands of physical machines, on a scale far larger than your University IT department could possibly imagine. Although not your Computer Science department, because it's their job to know about these things! They also try and sum the power of their machines in clever ways, so they don't waste a drop of resources...

But the principle is the same as your university internet services! Since your on the user rather than administrator side of the university network divide, I doubt you've had much exposure to their internet serving gubbins, although they might co-exist on the same physical network!

I only have two books by the way!

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[info]fionnghuala
2008-06-04 09:30 pm UTC (link)
Major internet outfits have in fact thousands of physical machines, on a scale far larger than your University IT department could possibly imagine.

This is what I was imagining. I have heard the term 'server farm', which is quite evocative.

So would those be ISPs? So the guts of the internet is run on a relatively small number of ISPs? Which are financed by the people who subscribe to those ISPs ?

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[info]doctor_nemesis
2008-06-05 09:02 am UTC (link)
Relatively few? I suppose so. There must be thousands of ISPs, which is a relatively small number...

But only large ISPs will have servers listed in the hundreds, and small ones might have a dozen.

Google need thousands of servers because they deal with millions of search requests each day and millions of people's e-mail. Same with MS and Yahoo. Facebook needs thousands of servers because of it's millions of users and (to my mind) poor design.

Most ISPs are hosting personal websites that no one looks at! They don't need much power at all in the scheme of things...

The internet is everything you can do over it, and as far as I know, no one company provides all services (do Google or MS do VoIP?). Companies usually have their own servers, and sometimes choose to run their websites, e-mail, etc, from them. So whilst they're getting a physical link from the ISP, they're not using any other facilities.

Your question is massively broad! I'm afraid you won't be able to boil it down to a simple one sentence answer. Sort of like asking "what is the world made of?" Well, geologists can answer you, but for any accuracy they can't in one sentence. It requires a build up of knowledge!

Asking:

"How come we hear tons about google and microsoft and gang their hold on the internet, but never anything about this material stuff?"

Is like asking about cars:

"How come we hear tons about new models of cars coming out, but never hear anything about what's in the factories used to make them?"

There is lots of stuff in the factory, but most people are massively un-interested in what that actually is. They care about the car that comes out! So you don't hear about it. All you hear in mainstream news is if they're building a plant or closing it. Same with Google and it's data centres. That and what is inside both is confidential company stuff, although you still get to hear about it if your interested...

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