Supernets and snHubs: A Foundationfor Public Utility Computing

The notion of procuring computer services from a utility, much the way we get water and electricity and phone service, is not new. The idea at the center of the public utility trend in computer services is to allow firms to focus less on administering and supporting their information technology and more on running their business. Supernets and their implementation as hardware devices (snHubs) are our approach to make networks part of the public utility computing (PUC) infrastructure. The infrastructure is a key to integrating and enabling such "remote access" constituencies as B2B, out-sourcing vendors, and workers who telecommute in a safe and scalable manner. We have designed, developed, and deployed a prototype whose viability is now being demonstrated by a small deployment throughout Sun Microsystems. email addresses: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] © 2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. The SML Technical Report Series is published by Sun Microsystems Laboratories, of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Printed in U.S.A. Unlimited copying without fee is permitted provided that the copies are not made nor distributed for direct commercial advantage, and credit to the source is given. Otherwise, no part of this work covered by copyright hereon may be reproduced in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or storage in an information retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. TRADEMARKS Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, and Java are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd. For information regarding the SML Technical Report Series, contact Jeanie Treichel, Editor-in-Chief .All technical reports are available online on our Website, http://research.sun.com/techrep/. Supernets and snHubs: A Foundation for Public Utility Computing Germano Caronni, Tim Curry Pete St. Pierre, Glenn Scott Sun Microsystems Laboratories [email protected]