[Ietf-62] Conference net status.

[Dennis Fazio <[e-mail]>]

It's been a while since we've communicated on things for the Minneapolis 
conference, so here are some status details and needs we still have:

Dave Farmer and I have met with the Hilton folks and surveyed the site and 
we've also met a couple of times to map out the network design. Here is a 
summary:

1. Hilton facilities.

All of the wiring and infrastructure facilities are still in place and 
available. There are two network drops in each meeting room, one for the 
internal Hotel LAN and one for the Hilton Internet service. We will be able 
to use the wiring for the Hilton Internet service for our purposes during the 
week, so that gives us two drops in each room. That obviates the need to put 
a switch in each room to accommodate the wireless data and wired unicast 
voice nets (I believe there is no multicast video this time).

We will have access to their telecomm/network hub on the 4th floor to be able 
to place equipment and patch into their distribution panels for the meeting 
rooms. Other distribution panels are still available in the coat room, where 
the registration desk will be.

We will also have access to the roof to place wireless equipment. We also 
surveyed the possibility of placing a base station to cover the 28th floor 
lounge, and that also is available using hotel wiring.

2. Internet access

Onvoy has placed an order for the dark fiber to the Hilton to terminate in 
their Minneapolis PoP in a gigabit ethernet port. From there, vLANs will be 
routed to get traffic to their 2-3 upstream backbones, and over a direct link 
to the University for Internet2 cross-connect. Delivery is on schedule for 
the first couple of days in March.

For a backup link, we would like to put in a wireless broadband link to the 
University for connection to its upstream national providers. We are seeking 
equipment from Alcatel, via Chris Liljenstolpe, and from Cisco, via Dave 
Farmer and the University Cisco rep. We hope to hear within a few days. If 
that does not pan out, we will have to install one or two T1 links.

3. Wired net

The University will supply whatever number of Cisco 3750 switch/routers we 
need to build the wired network. We will terminate the dark fiber and the 
wireless link in this equipment, one in the basement telecom room, one on the 
roof. GigE links will be brought down to the 3rd floor and distribution to 
the meeting rooms and base stations will be done from there. Switches will 
also be placed in the terminal room to supply the wired drops, printers and 
handful of supplied laptops there.

IPv6 routing will be done with a pair of Cisco 2900 units that the University 
will also supply, one for the Onvoy dark fiber path, one for the University 
wireless path.

There should be no need for any additional routers or switches from other 
sources.

4. Wireless net

We are still in need of about 35 801.11 b/g or a/b/g base stations. This is 
our estimate to cover all the meeting rooms on both floors, the lobby and 
bar, the 28th floor lounge and a couple on the roof for outdoors. To do the 
rooftop units, we will need a couple of hi-gain directional antennas to give 
us decent signal down on the street and into the bars and restaurants. There 
is still no word on availability of this equipment yet.

We also need a person to take on the role of project director for the 
wireless net. We could do it here with University folk, but this is a 
challenging high-density high-noise network and someone well-steeped in radio 
magic would be most helpful. Any network management software to monitor and 
manage the wireless net and expertise to run it is also needed.

5. Servers and printers

I believe the servers are on hand at IETF HQ and ready for deployment. We 
need to have a project leader for this portion officially identified also to 
get the web, mail, DHCP, print queues, etc. up and running. I believe Albert 
is also in the process of acquiring printers.


Next steps:

Dave and I will visit the Hilton again next week to get the jacks and 
building wiring mapped out with their LAN guy and start early planning for 
switch/router and  base station placement. Dave will do an initial network 
plan in Visio and send it out (PDFs would be helpful for readibility) when 
available.

We need to identify where the base stations will come from, who will be the 
wireless net lead, and who will be the server system lead.

I am sure I forgot some things, so please chime in. We need to get some 
chatter going here and details planned out, so off we go.

Albert, is there any information I can gather or put together that would be 
useful for the attendees during their visit here?

-- 
Dennis Fazio
612-781-6890

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