Despite the many objections raised against genetic research, one particular technological spin-off from the Human Genome Project is offering a potential solution to SA's constant bandwidth problems.
Molecular sequence reduction (MSR) technology - originally developed by Peribit Networks to assist with DNA sequencing - is being touted by its local distributor, Source Consulting, as a solution which can provide instant capacity gains of up to 10 times.
Source Consulting MD Jack Ward says the reason this is possible is due to the technology's ability to find variable-sized repeating packets anywhere in the data stream, across multiple packets, applications or sessions, and replace these with much smaller characters.
"Up to 90% of network traffic is repetitive, so by simply replacing the recurring information with smaller labels, the MSR technology eliminates replication and can thus massively increase capacity.
"Compressing files has always been a bit a problem before, due to the latency issue, which is basically the length of time transmission is held up. However, unlike normal compression files that provide high speed and low latency, this new technology offers both high speed and high latency."
He says SA's bandwidth and infrastructure problems are making it difficult for local companies to compete with the overseas markets since, in comparison with the US market, "we are driving at 5mph and they are going at 120mph". This technology is therefore all the more important for SA.
"In both laboratory tests and customer focus groups we have had some amazing results. The byte reduction for an application like e-mail is in the region of 75%, while for Oracle it's 78% and it's up to 80% for SQL," says Ward.
"The beauty of MSR is that - unlike normal compression systems, which only look at the payload - it looks across all the data, including headers and footers, and compresses any data patterns that it finds."
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