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Broadband Internet

2003-12 (Vol.39, No.2)

This special issue covers R&D topics in key technologies — ranging from broadband services to platform technologies — that are now available for application in advanced Fujitsu solutions.

2003-12 (Vol.39, No.2) Contents

1. Preface (29 KB): We hope that this issue will give us an opportunity to share with our customers the evolutionary fruit of the Broadband Internet. ---[Shuzo Morita, VSenior Vice President, Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.]

2. Fujitsu's Approach toward the Broadband Internet Era (87 KB): Technological progress is enabling businesses and individual users to communicate with each other at ever-increasing speeds. Due to the strong competition between service providers, the charges for high-speed Internet communication services are low and are being further reduced. Because of the growth in the number of users with access to high-speed communications, a wide variety of services are becoming feasible from the standpoint of business. For example, in addition to text, still pictures, and audio, it is now practical to distribute movies, which contain large amounts of data. New technologies are needed to support the creation, management, and retrieval of multimedia contents, and new security mechanisms will be indispensable for Internet safety. This paper introduces Fujitsu's approach toward providing solutions based on the broadband Internet and introduces the other papers in this special issue. --- [Kiichi Matsuda, Takashi Itoh]

Service Infrastructure

3. Broadband FENICS (67 KB): Since 2001, broadband access lines such as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), FTTH (Fiber To The Home), and CATV (Community Antenna TeleVision) have become popular in Japan. To cope with the explosion of Internet traffic, we have introduced a new broadband backbone network called B-FENICS, and we are providing many services such as the @nifty ISP (Internet Service Provider) service and Internet VPN (Virtual Private Network) service for enterprises using B-FENICS. To construct this new backbone network, we adopted three new technologies: 1) the Tag VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network), 2) Gigabit Ethernet, and 3) a fully redundant configuration. In this paper, we describe the B-FENICS backbone network and then describe some examples of its application. --- [Tsutomu Saito, Yukio Kawashima]

4. FENICS IP Telephony Services (87 KB): The Japanese broadband Internet market has been increasing dramatically since ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) services started in 2000, and its growth is cur-rently the fastest in the world. The main factors driving this growth are the Japanese Government's "e-Japan Strategy," technology innovations, and a cheap usage rate. IP telephony services started emerging in 2002 based on the development of the broadband Internet market. The IP telephony services market in Japan is also increasing dramatically because of its low costs and cheap usage rates. Fujitsu is committed to providing its customers with the best outsourcing services by exploiting IP telephony. Fujitsu created the FENICS IP Telephony Services so that enterprise customers can exploit IP telephony technology, broadband Internet technology, and Fujitsu's knowledge of outsourcing and the network services business. In the short time that this service has been available, it has already become the market leader. The key feature of the FENICS IP Telephony Services is that it enables customers to reduce their total costs and simultaneously accelerate their business operations. This paper describes the background of IP telephony services in Japan and outlines the FENICS IP Telephony Services and some related best practices. --- [Akihiro Okada]

5. Utility Computing Technology for IDC Operation (245 KB): Internet data centers (IDCs) have been providing various business and services in recent years, and utility computing is expected to become the new operating technology for IDCs of future outsourcing businesses. By using this technology, users can receive stable, high-quality services without having to make needless investments, even when there are unexpected increases in the volume of access or business. This is achieved by sharing IT resources at the center and assigning the necessary servers and network resources to heavy-load services. This paper describes the benefits that utility computing technology can provide to center users and the basic requirements for IDCs. It also describes the components of utility computing technology, including the technologies for system monitoring, IT resource reallocation, and system control. --- [Motomitsu Adachi, Hideaki Orikasa]

6. Firewall-Friendly VoIP Secure Gateway and VoIP Security Issues (116 KB): IP telephony services using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technologies have rapidly spread over the last several years. However, interoperation of an IP-PBX (Private Branch eXchange) service and a consumer IP telephony service has not yet been achieved. This is because typical intranets are protected by firewalls and IP telephony protocols are not firewall-friendly?because, among other reasons, they use UDP (User Datagram Protocol)-based protocols. In this paper, we explain the technologies of the VoIP Secure Gateway, which makes IP telephony protocols firewall-friendly and enables an enterprise IP-PBX service to interoperate with a consumer IP telephony service through a firewall. Also, we look at other security problems that need to be solved in order to expand IP telephony services in the future. --- [Noriyuki Fukuyama, Shingo Fujimoto, Masahiko Takenaka]

7. Directory Management for Knowledge Sharing in Enterprises (140 KB): Web servers are becoming very common in large organizations. While they seem to promote and support knowledge sharing, the lack of control is causing many problems, for example, the decentralization of information and redundancy of categories and contents. We are developing a system to support directory maintenance. In this paper, we describe a unified framework for document directory maintenance and a system we are developing that decreases directory maintenance work for editors. --- [Takanori Ugai, Kazuo Misue, Kunio Matsui]

8. VizGrid: Virtualized Collaboration Environment with 3D Images (94 KB): In this paper, we describe a remote collaboration environment based on Volume Communication technology that handles 3D images as objects shared among participants. Three-dimensional images are intuitive and familiar. In addition we can often use them to express ideas in a more natural way than with words. In VizGrid, which is a national joint-project between universities and Fujitsu, we are developing a communication technology for handling 3D images and a remote collaboration system. This technology generates, compresses, transmits, displays, and searches for 3D images. The collaboration system based on Volume Communication enables eye-to-eye contact and represents relative positions between participants and shared objects. Also, when people carry out tasks they have been assigned by others in their group, our system offers facilities for maintaining links between co-workers who access the same documents and visualizing their relationships in 3D. In the last part of this paper, we propose a way to represent a real-time collaboration space as a part of asynchronous space. This environment helps co-workers to conduct frequent conversations with each other by presenting interrelationships while switching between two types of workspace. --- [Ryuichi Matsukura, Yukihiro Karube, Toru Koyama]

9. Highlights Distribution Service: Providing Records of the Memorable Events in People's Lives (219 KB): This paper describes the development of Fujitsu's Highlight Scene Distribution Service. We have learned that the most popular contents on the broadband Internet are highlights in ordinary people's lives that are not covered by the mass media, but in which they play the leading role. We also found that providing such highlights on recorded disks increases people's desire to buy these highlights. Therefore, we are developing a service that allows a service provider operating in areas such as sports events and amusement establishments to extract memorable video scenes and then distribute them on demand or provide them on recorded disks that are customized for the end users. This paper outlines the Highlight Scene Distribution Service and describes an example of its application. --- [Toru Kamada, Yasuyuki Nakata, Koichi Oikawa]

10. Security and Reliability for Web Services (267 KB): Web services are expected to become an important information technology (IT) in the future. There are, however, several security problems when Web services are used on the Internet, for example, interception, disguise, and repudiation. In this paper, we describe the problems that cannot be resolved by traditional technology such as SSL (Secure Socket Layer)/TLS (Transport Layer Security) and describe latest technologies such as XML digital signatures and XML encryption that can overcome these problems. We also show how these technologies are being used with Fujitsu's Interstage Application Server, which provides a CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) compliant infrastructure that delivers the highest level of performance, robustness, and scalability. Moreover, we describe our activities for establishing two standards for these new technologies: Web Services Security and Web Services Reliability. --- [Takayuki Maeda, Yoshihide Nomura, Hirotaka Hara]

Platform

11. R&D for a Broadband and Flexible Network Infrastructure (247 KB): This paper surveys the R&D trends in broadband communication and describes some of the relevant activities of Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., which cover both fixed and mobile networks. In 1999, we proposed a network vision called the Virtual Router Network (VRN) to realize a network that can accommodate a huge amount of IP traffic by fully implementing photonic network technology and aligned our R&D activities in that direction. Since then, we have achieved many important research results. This paper introduces some of our key achievements in network architecture, network management, photonic networks, and mobile communication. --- [Toshitaka Tsuda]

12. Carrier-Grade Ethernet Switch for Reliable Wide-Area Ethernet Service (115 KB): The Wide-Area Ethernet Service is one of the fastest growing services for enterprise users. It connects remote business sites using Ethernet interfaces and provides broader bandwidth at a lower cost than conventional leased-line services. The Wide-Area Ethernet is composed of conventional Ethernet switches that were originally designed for LAN applications. Therefore, its network reliability and QoS (Quality of Service) are insufficient for business applications. In this paper, we show the technical requirements for an Ethernet switch that can be used to build a reliable Ethernet. Especially, we focus on using redundancy to enhance reliability and QoS capabilities. We also describe the basic features of the Wide-Area Ethernet and two new features we are proposing: the Virtual Port and the Directing VWAN (Virtual Wide Area Network). Lastly, we introduce a new line of Fujitsu Ethernet switches that meet these requirements to achieve carrier-grade quality. --- [Tomohiro Ishihara, Kazuto Nishimura, Jun Tanaka, Kazuyuki Miura]

13. QoS Control by Traffic Engineering in Content Delivery Networks (127 KB): Traffic engineering (TE) is a method of managing and controlling IP networks efficiently.This paper proposes a dynamic TE architecture that provides a QoS (Quality of Service) guaranteed service in addition to an existing best-effort service in a content delivery network (CDN). This architecture selects the optimum route and server for a user request based on the load of the network and content server. It aims to guarantee the QoS and effectively use network resources by dynamic load balancing. Also in this paper, we present the results of a simulation of the effects of our proposed method. --- [Hitoshi Yamada, Akiko Okamura, Koji Nakamichi, Kiyoshi Sakai, Akira Chugo]

14. Next-Generation IT Strategy Based on ALL-IP Strategy (159 KB): The broadband IP network is accelerating the cooperation between IT systems such as servers and storage. Fujitsu's key strategy for next-generation IT systems is called the ALL-IP strategy. In this strategy, all IT resources, including servers, are interconnected over the IP network. This strategy provides high-performance access to IT systems at a reasonable cost. Autonomic functions will be needed to manage large, next-generation IT systems because they will have complicated management functions. Grid technology makes it possible to virtualize the components of IT systems. In this paper, we introduce our ALL-IP strategy and also discuss a 10 Gbit Ethernet switch, organic computing, and grid computing for realizing the ALL-IP system. --- [Haruo Akimoto]

15. Approaches to User-Centric Computing System for Ubiquitous Solutions (237 KB): The ubiquitous computing system has become a key component in the growth of broadband networks. This paper describes the features of a ubiquitous computing system that consists of a broadband core network and an IP-based LAN and non-IP based adhoc networks. It also describes our approaches to user-centric systems for realizing ubiquitous solutions. --- [Tomoyoshi Takebayashi, Hiroshi Yamada]

16. NVML: NaVigation Markup Language (154 KB): The spread of mobile appliances such as cellular phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and the development of positioning technology based on GPS (Global Positioning System) and base-station information have led to the development of Location Based Services (LBSs). NVML (NaVigation Markup Language) is an XML proposed by Fujitsu for describing navigation information such as the position and route of a moving object (e.g., a human or a car) and related information. This paper introduces NVML as an example of an XML for LBSs and describes some NVML systems and applications. --- [Kuniharu Takayama, Yoshiharu Maeda, Hirohisa Naito]

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