The Net of It: Thoughts on the Future of the Web – Part 1

The last decade brought fundamental changes to the Internet and its impact on both businesses and consumers. With the emergence and subsequent explosion of IP-enabled devices and applications – such as smartphones, social media and online video, as well as cloud-based enterprise IT applications – the Internet is becoming central to how we live and work, setting in motion a cycle of Internet data traffic growth and bandwidth demands with no foreseeable ceiling.

So, as we usher in the second decade of the 21st century, I thought it might be worth devoting a series of blog posts to the continued evolution of the Internet and potential new ways we might interact with it – and each other. Here’s my first round of Internet musings:

The cloud will power the Internet: Moving forward, much of the “heavy lifting” or computational processes involved with using network applications and services will shift into the network or “the cloud.” Virtualization of this hidden computational and storage power will be key to new Internet architectures and devices. Devices will become intelligent portals to a broader set of resources that sit in a variety of locations, providing the desired service at an optimal cost point. This shift to the cloud will minimize the power drain on mobile devices while also delivering enormous and scalable computing power to these devices.

This network model will require large amounts of data being transferred into the web with much less data transferred out. For example, a possible scenario for uploading a video might look something like this: The network would perform all recognition of people, locations, human actions and words within the video; the processed information would be sent back to a mobile phone or other device; and key words would trigger secondary activities, such as posts to a Facebook account or making images and video fully searchable visually by using other images as search keys.

Information sharing will get more personal: Information sharing will continue to grow beyond the basic social media interactions we are seeing today. People will begin to share much more than text, pictures and video with friends, potentially leading to individual, personalized versions of black-box flight recorders for personal health – communicating things like minute-by-minute heart rate, body temperature, blood alcohol and vitamin levels. The auto and home-entertainment industries seem to represent similar areas of potential growth. We’re already seeing the early stages of this with companies like Progressive Insurance inserting tracking devices in cars to offer “pay as you drive” mileage discounts.

The Web as a universal resource: As networking, storage and computing systems begin to merge in functionality, virtual appliances become more ubiquitous and networks increasingly heterogeneous and programmable – the Web will act as a universal resource that is leveraged for optimal delivery of features and services. For example, personalized content may stay within the network, “following” the user; or, the nature of a network may dynamically change depending on the time of day.

But with these types of ubiquitous services, larger challenges will arise, such as the simultaneous need for ubiquitous authentication, security and electronic billing. The broader issue of net neutrality will come into play as well, raising questions as to how this new web economy will be subsidized. Will the Internet ever be monetized beyond existing areas like e-retail? Will the net be stratified into gated communities where those with financial resources will pay for premium services, devices and applications that will subsidize those receiving more basic communications services, such as “best effort” capacity?

What are your thoughts on how the Internet will evolve?

Dave Parks is director of product marketing at Ciena Corp. (CIEN), which provides flexible platforms, intelligent software and professional services to help service providers and enterprises worldwide use their networks to change the way they compete. He is also the marketing committee chairman for the IP/MPLS Forum. Before joining Ciena, Parks was a senior analyst with the Yankee Group covering enterprise Ethernet and IP VPN network services and market trends. Prior to that, he supported product management and marketing for Lucent Technologies and Ascend/Cascade Communications.