[98all] IETF98 Network Shutdown

[Jim Martin <[e-mail]>]

Gentlepeople,
	As the meeting comes to a close, we wanted to update everyone on the shutdown schedule for the IETF Network. The wireless APs that deliver the main IETF networks in the Swissôtel meeting rooms will be removed throughout the day as sessions come to a close. The Terminal Room will be closed at 3pm today. The guest room Internet in both the Swissôtel and the Fairmont will revert to the traditional hotel networks this afternoon, and “ietf-hotel” will disappear from the public areas gradually through the afternoon.

	One tidbit of information on the Swissôtel guest/public network. As we mentioned early on, the hotel installed a brand new wireless infrastructure just before we arrived:  802.11ac throughout with significant backhauls … sounded great to us! However, when we got onsite we identified a number of issues, the worst of which was that the APs would “black hole” a given association randomly, and would require moving to a different SSID or reset of your wireless to get service restored. Even worse, this seemed to happen most in the lobby bar! Since last Sunday, the NOC team, hotel technical staff, and hotel wireless vendors have been working together to resolve these issues. These efforts have been continuous, including after-hours troubleshooting, debugging, packet capture analysis, and even the deployment of custom firmware images. I’m happy to say that as of last night, a fixed image was deployed to all 285 APs in the hotel and this issue should be squashed. We won’t benefit a lot, but we’re happy to leave the hotel network better than we found it! Many thanks to Clemens Schrimpe and Joe Clarke of the NOC team and Jamie Koziol of the Swissôtel for the tireless work on this!

	We hope you all have a good trip home and look forward to seeing everyone in Prague!

	- Jim and the NOC Team
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