CYCLADES

For the Greek islands, see Cyclades.

Internet history timeline

Early research and development: 1960–4 (1960–4): RAND networking concepts developed 1962–4 (1962–4): ARPA networking ideas 1965 (1965): NPL network concepts conceived 1966 (1966): Merit Network founded 1967 (1967): ARPANET planning begins 1967 (1967): Symposium on Operating Systems Principles 1969 (1969): NPL followed by the ARPANET carry their first packets 1970 (1970): Network Information Center (NIC) 1971 (1971): Tymnet switched-circuit network 1972 (1972): Merit Network's packet-switched network operational 1972 (1972): Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) established 1973 (1973): CYCLADES network demonstrated 1973 (1973): PARC Universal Packet development begins 1974 (1974): Transmission Control Program specification published 1975 (1975): Telenet commercial packet-switched network 1976 (1976): X.25 protocol approved and deployed on public data networks 1978 (1978): Minitel introduced 1979 (1979): Internet Activities Board (IAB) 1980 (1980): USENET news using UUCP 1980 (1980): Ethernet standard introduced 1981 (1981): BITNET established Merging the networks and creating the Internet: 1981 (1981): Computer Science Network (CSNET) 1982 (1982): TCP/IP protocol suite formalized 1982 (1982): Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) 1983 (1983): Domain Name System (DNS) 1983 (1983): MILNET split off from ARPANET 1984 (1984): OSI Reference Model released 1985 (1985): First .COM domain name registered 1986 (1986): NSFNET with 56 kbit/s links 1986 (1986): Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 1987 (1987): UUNET founded 1988 (1988): NSFNET upgraded to 1.5 Mbit/s (T1) 1988 (1988): Morris worm 1988 (1988): Complete Internet protocol suite 1989 (1989): Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) 1989 (1989): PSINet founded, allows commercial traffic 1989 (1989): Federal Internet Exchanges (FIX East|FIXes) 1990 (1990): GOSIP (without TCP/IP) 1990 (1990): ARPANET decommissioned 1990 (1990): Advanced Network and Services (ANS) 1990 (1990): UUNET/Alternet allows commercial traffic 1990 (1990): Archie search engine 1991 (1991): Wide area information server (WAIS) 1991 (1991): Gopher 1991 (1991): Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) 1991 (1991): ANS CO+RE allows commercial traffic 1991 (1991): World Wide Web (WWW) 1992 (1992): NSFNET upgraded to 45 Mbit/s (T3) 1992 (1992): Internet Society (ISOC) established 1993 (1993): Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) 1993 (1993): InterNIC established 1993 (1993): AOL added USENET access 1993 (1993): Mosaic web browser released 1994 (1994): Full text web search engines 1994 (1994): North American Network Operators' Group (NANOG) established Commercialization, privatization, broader access leads to the modern Internet: 1995 (1995): New Internet architecture with commercial ISPs connected at NAPs 1995 (1995): NSFNET decommissioned 1995 (1995): GOSIP updated to allow TCP/IP 1995 (1995): very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) 1995 (1995): IPv6 proposed 1996 (1996): AOL changes pricing model from hourly to monthly 1998 (1998): Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 1999 (1999): IEEE 802.11b wireless networking 1999 (1999): Internet2/Abilene Network 1999 (1999): vBNS+ allows broader access 2000 (2000): Dot-com bubble bursts 2001 (2001): New top-level domain names activated 2001 (2001): Code Red I, Code Red II, and Nimda worms 2003 (2003): UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) phase I 2003 (2003): National LambdaRail founded 2004 (2004): UN Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) 2005 (2005): UN WSIS phase II 2006 (2006): First meeting of the Internet Governance Forum 2010 (2010): First internationalized country code top-level domains registered 2012 (2012): ICANN begins accepting applications for new generic top-level domain names 2013 (2013): Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation 2014 (2014): NetMundial international Internet governance proposal 2016 (2016): ICANN contract with U.S. Dept. of Commerce ends, IANA oversight passes to the global Internet community on October 1st Examples of Internet services: 1989 (1989): AOL dial-up service provider, email, instant messaging, and web browser 1990 (1990): IMDb Internet movie database 1994 (1994): Yahoo! web directory 1995 (1995): Amazon online retailer 1995 (1995): eBay online auction and shopping 1995 (1995): Craigslist classified advertisements 1995 (1995): AltaVista search engine 1996 (1996): Outlook (formerly Hotmail) free web-based e-mail 1996 (1996): RankDex search engine 1997 (1997): Google Search 1997 (1997): Babel Fish automatic translation 1998 (1998): Yahoo Groups (formerly Yahoo! Clubs) 1998 (1998): PayPal Internet payment system 1998 (1998): Rotten Tomatoes review aggregator 1999 (1999): 2ch Anonymous textboard 1999 (1999): i-mode mobile internet service 1999 (1999): Napster peer-to-peer file sharing 2000 (2000): Baidu search engine 2001 (2001): 2chan Anonymous imageboard 2001 (2001): BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing 2001 (2001): Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 2003 (2003): LinkedIn business networking 2003 (2003): Myspace social networking site 2003 (2003): Skype Internet voice calls 2003 (2003): iTunes Store 2003 (2003): 4chan Anonymous imageboard 2003 (2003): The Pirate Bay, torrent file host 2004 (2004): Facebook social networking site 2004 (2004): Podcast media file series 2004 (2004): Flickr image hosting 2005 (2005): YouTube video sharing 2005 (2005): Reddit link voting 2005 (2005): Google Earth virtual globe 2006 (2006): Twitter microblogging 2007 (2007): WikiLeaks anonymous news and information leaks 2007 (2007): Google Street View 2007 (2007): Kindle, e-reader and virtual bookshop 2008 (2008): Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) 2008 (2008): Dropbox cloud-based file hosting 2008 (2008): Encyclopedia of Life, a collaborative encyclopedia intended to document all living species 2008 (2008): Spotify, a DRM-based music streaming service 2009 (2009): Bing search engine 2009 (2009): Google Docs, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, form, and data storage service 2009 (2009): Kickstarter, a threshold pledge system 2009 (2009): Bitcoin, a digital currency 2010 (2010): Instagram, photo sharing and social networking 2011 (2011): Google+, social networking 2011 (2011): Snapchat, photo sharing 2012 (2012): Coursera, massive open online courses 2016 (2016): TikTok, video sharing and social networking

The CYCLADES computer network (French pronunciation: [siklad]) was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate internetworking.^[1][2]

The CYCLADES network was the first to make the hosts responsible for the reliable delivery of data, rather than this being a centralized service of the network itself. Datagrams were exchanged on the network using transport protocols that do not guarantee reliable delivery, but only attempt best-effort. To empower the network leaves the hosts to perform error-correction, the network ensured end-to-end protocol transparency, a concept later to be known as the end-to-end principle. This simplified network design, reduced network latency, and reduced the opportunities for single point failures. The experience with these concepts led to the design of key features of the Internet Protocol in the ARPANET project.^[3][4][5]

The network was sponsored by the French government, through the Institut de Recherche en lnformatique et en Automatique (IRIA), the national research laboratory for computer science in France, now known as Inria, which served as the co-ordinating agency. Several French computer manufacturers, research institutes and universities contributed to the effort. CYCLADES was designed and directed by Louis Pouzin.^[6][7]

Conception and deployment

Planning for the project began in 1971.^[8][9] Design and staffing started in 1972, and November 1973 saw the first demonstration, using three hosts and one packet switch.^[10]

Pouzin coined the term catenet in 1973, in a note circulated to the International Network Working Group,^[11] to describe a system of packet-switched communication networks interconnected via gateways. He later published these ideas in a 1974 paper "A Proposal for Interconnecting Packet Switching Networks".^[12]

Deployment of the network continued in 1974, with three packet switches installed by February, although at that point the network was only operational for three hours each day. By June the network was up to seven switches, and was available throughout the day for experimental use.

A terminal concentrator was also developed that year, since time-sharing was still a prevalent mode of computer use. In 1975, the network shrank slightly due to budgetary constraints, but the setback was only temporary. At that point, the network provided remote login, remote batch and file transfer user application services.

By 1976 the network was in full deployment, eventually numbering 20 nodes with connections to NPL in London, ESA in Rome, and to the European Informatics Network (EIN).

Technical details

CYCLADES used a layered architecture, which was adopted in the Internet. The basic packet transmission like function, named CIGALE, was novel; it provided an unreliable datagram service (the word was coined by Louis Pouzin by combining data and telegram). Since the packet switches no longer had to ensure correct delivery of data, this greatly simplified their design.^[13]

“The inspiration for datagrams had two sources. One was Donald Davies' studies. He had done some simulation of datagram networks, although he had not built any, and it looked technically viable. The second inspiration was I like things simple. I didn't see any real technical motivation to overlay two levels of end-to-end protocols. I thought one was enough.”

— Louis Pouzin^[4]

The CIGALE network featured a distance vector routing protocol, and allowed experimentation with various metrics. it also included a time synchronization protocol in all the packet switches. CIGALE included early attempts at performing congestion control by dropping excess packets.

The name CIGALE (French pronunciation: [siɡal]) – French for cicada – originates from the fact that the developers installed a speaker at each computer, so that "it went 'chirp chirp chirp' like cicadas" when a packet passed a computer.^[14]

An end-to-end protocol built on top of that provided a reliable transport service, on top of which applications were built. It provided a reliable sequence of user-visible data units called letters, rather than the reliable byte stream of TCP. The transport protocol was able to deal with out-of-order and unreliable delivery of datagrams, using the now-standard mechanisms of end-end acknowledgments and timeouts; it also featured sliding windows and end-to-end flow control.

Demise

By 1976, the French PTT was developing Transpac, a packet network based on the emerging X.25 standard. The academic debates between datagram and virtual circuit networks continued for some time, but were eventually cut short by bureaucratic decisions.

Data transmission was a state monopoly in France at the time, and IRIA needed a special dispensation to run the CYCLADES network. The PTT did not agree to funding by the government of a competitor to their Transpac network, and insisted that the permission and funding be rescinded. By 1981, Cyclades was forced to shut down.^[8]

Legacy

The most important legacy of CYCLADES was in showing that moving the responsibility for reliability into the hosts was workable, and produced a well-functioning service network. It also showed that it greatly reduced the complexity of the packet switches. The concept became a cornerstone in the design of the Internet.^{[3][4][5][15][16]}

The network was a fertile ground for experimentation, and allowed a generation of French computer scientists to experiment with networking concepts.^[2] Louis Pouzin and the CYCLADES alumni initiated a number of follow-on projects at IRIA to experiment with local area networks, satellite networks, the Unix operating system, and the message passing operating system Chorus.

Hubert Zimmermann used his experience in CYCLADES to influence the design of the OSI model, which is still a common pedagogical tool.

Gérard Le Lann worked with Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn to incorporate concepts from the CYCLADES project into the original design of the Transmission Control Program.^[17]

CYCLADES alumni and researchers at IRIA/INRIA were also influential in spreading adoption of the Internet in France, eventually witnessing the success of the datagram-based Internet, and the demise of the X.25 and ATM virtual circuit networks.

See also

• History of the Internet
• Internet in France § History
• NPL network
• CII Mitra-15 mini-computers, which ran the CYCLADES nodes

References

• Pouzin, Louis (1973). "Presentation and Major Design Aspects of the Cyclades Computer Network". Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Computer Communication Networks. Sussex, United Kingdom: Noordhoff International Publishing. pp. 415–434. Archived from the original on 2021-02-24.
• Pouzin, Louis (1974). "CIGALE, the packet switching machine of the CYCLADES computer network". Proc of IFIP. Stockholm, Sweden. pp. 155–159. Archived from the original on 2021-03-01.
• Pouzin, Louis (1975). "The CYCLADES network-present state and development trends". Symposium on Computer Networks. Gaithersburg, Maryland: IEEE Computer Society. pp. 8–13. Archived from the original on 2021-02-24.

Notes

1. Abbate, Janet (2000). Inventing the Internet. MIT Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-262-51115-5.
2. Kim, Byung-Keun (2005). Internationalising the Internet the Co-evolution of Influence and Technology. Edward Elgar. pp. 51–55. ISBN 1845426754.
3. Bennett, Richard (September 2009). "Designed for Change: End-to-End Arguments, Internet Innovation, and the Net Neutrality Debate" (PDF). Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. p. 11. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
4. Pelkey, James. "6.3 CYCLADES Network and Louis Pouzin 1971-1972". Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Innovation: A History of Computer Communications 1968-1988. Archived from the original on 2021-06-17. Retrieved 2012-08-25.
5. Pelkey, James. "6.4 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) 1973-1976". Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Innovation: A History of Computer Communications 1968-1988. Archived from the original on 2018-03-06. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
6. "The internet's fifth man". Economist. 13 December 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2017. In the early 1970s Mr Pouzin created an innovative data network that linked locations in France, Italy and Britain. Its simplicity and efficiency pointed the way to a network that could connect not just dozens of machines, but millions of them. It captured the imagination of Dr Cerf and Dr Kahn, who included aspects of its design in the protocols that now power the internet.
7. "Say Bonjour to the Internet's Long-Lost French Uncle". Wired. 3 January 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
8. Russell, Andrew L.; Schafer, Valérie (2014). "In the Shadow of ARPANET and Internet: Louis Pouzin and the Cyclades Network in the 1970s". Technology and Culture. 55 (4): 880–907. doi:10.1353/tech.2014.0096. ISSN 0040-165X. JSTOR 24468474.
9. Andrew L. Russell (30 July 2013). "OSI: The Internet That Wasn't". IEEE Spectrum. Vol. 50, no. 8.
10. Pouzin, Louis (1973). "Presentation and major design aspects of the CYCLADES computer network". Proceedings of the third ACM symposium on Data communications and Data networks Analysis and design - DATACOMM '73. ACM Press. pp. 80–87. doi:10.1145/800280.811034. ISBN 978-1-4503-7384-5.
11. McKenzie, Alexander (2011). "INWG and the Conception of the Internet: An Eyewitness Account". IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 33 (1): 66–71. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2011.9. ISSN 1934-1547. S2CID 206443072.
12. A Proposal for Interconnecting Packet Switching Networks, L. Pouzin, Proceedings of EUROCOMP, Brunel University, May 1974, pp. 1023-36.
13. "A Technical History of CYCLADES" Archived 2013-09-01 at the Wayback Machine, Technical Histories of the Internet & other Network Protocols (THINK), University of Texas, 11 June 2002
14. Gillies, James and Robert Cailliau (2000). How the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web. Oxford University Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-19-286207-5.
15. "The path to digital literacy and network culture in France (1980s to 1990s)". The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories. Taylor & Francis. 2017. pp. 84–89. ISBN 978-1317607656.
16. Cerf, V.; Kahn, R. (1974). "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication" (PDF). IEEE Transactions on Communications. 22 (5): 637–648. doi:10.1109/TCOM.1974.1092259. ISSN 1558-0857. The authors wish to thank a number of colleagues for helpful comments during early discussions of international network protocols, especially R. Metcalfe, R. Scantlebury, D. Walden, and H. Zimmerman; D. Davies and L. Pouzin who constructively commented on the fragmentation and accounting issues; and S. Crocker who commented on the creation and destruction of associations.
17. Abbate, Janet (2000). Inventing the Internet. MIT Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-262-51115-5.

Further reading

• Louis Pouzin (editor), The Cyclades Computer Network: Toward Layered Network Architectures (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1982)
• Russell, Andrew L.; Schafer, Valérie (2014). "In the Shadow of ARPANET and Internet: Louis Pouzin and the Cyclades Network in the 1970s". Technology and Culture. 55 (4): 880–907. doi:10.1353/tech.2014.0096. ISSN 1097-3729. S2CID 143582561.
• Paloque-Bergès, Camille; Schafer, Valérie (2019-01-02). "French memories about the ARPANET: a conversation with Michel Élie and Gérard Le Lann". Internet Histories. 3 (1): 81–97. doi:10.1080/24701475.2018.1536934. ISSN 2470-1475. S2CID 150309933.

External links

• Demise of Cyclades