Nortel Buzzboard

Image from Broadcast EngineeringExaflood.

It is derived from the word “exabyte” - which is eqaul to one quintillion bytes. Numerically, that would be: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

I came across “exaflood” today while reading this article on Network World. The term is new to me, and probably new to a lot of readers since a quick Google search only found 28,500 instances of it (which is next to nothing for Google search). The word was coined by Bret Swanson in this WSJ opinion piece in January 2007.

Exaflood describes the pending deluge of traffic that many predict will overwhelm today’s Internet infrastructure. Peer-to-peer networking and the coming of online HD video are the most commonly named culprits for this traffic explosion — though telepresence, IPTV and Hyperconnectivity could be named as well.

Exaflood is most commonly linked with the hotly debated topic of Net Neutrality, mainly because Bret Swanson’s original use of the word was as part of an argument against the benefits of Net Neutrality. And this correlation seems to have given the term a bad name for some.

But the predictions of a flood of new traffic overwhelming the Internet’s ability to meet demand has other ramifications. Nortel for one has been talking about the pending Internet Traffic Jam as part of our core message for the need to find a viable way for service providers to upgrade to 40 Gig optical. Philippe Morin, Nortel’s president of Metro Ethernet Networks, has been a vocal spokesperson in this regard.

But the exaflood also creates issues around the cost of network infrastructure. Is it fair that service providers foot the bill - spending billions of dollars to upgrade their networks when it’s the YouTubes of the world that are driving up capacity requirements? This leads to a debate on the need to charge consumers based on usage instead of today’s traditional flat rate “all-you-can-consume” bandwidth model.

Of course, the biggest debate is whether an exaflood is even going to happen. The Network World article quotes Johna Till Johnson, CEO of Nemertes Research, as saying that “that while Web traffic has been growing at an exponential rate, the access capacity has been growing linearly.” Others disagree, highlighting recent research that Internet growth has slowed recently to 50-60% per year.

Indeed, there are many angles to the “exaflood” - and it’s a word that I’m guessing we’ll hear more of. Another quick search shows this is the first time “exaflood” has ever been mentioned on nortel.com….I bet it won’t be the last.