Network coding: networking's next revolution?

by Jim Duffy

Network coding: networking’s next revolution?

Some of high tech’s biggest names – Microsoft, HP and Intel among them – are starting to embrace a technology called network coding in an effort to boost throughput, scalability and efficiency of everything from content distribution to wireless networks.

Network coding, largely shrouded in university and vendor labs since it was proposed seven years ago by a handful of researchers, is essentially an algorithm that proponents say can potentially more than double network throughput while also improving reliability and resistance to attacks. Network coding’s most ardent supporters say the technology could spark networking’s next revolution, while others say network coding is more likely to quietly infiltrate network architectures based on existing routing schemes.