[Scale-planning] Event Wifi Sponsored

Sat Jun 18 22:34:38 PDT 2016

Hey folks -- 

I'm sitting out here on the periphery of this discussion (mainly because
I'm more into the audio stuff :), but I did want to throw out some
"scale" (haha) on the networking effort, since I was involved in a good
portion of it this past year. 

It was interesting to me to see how it all came together, how the
diagrams laid out everything, where the equipment was staged, etc.
Clearly, someone spent a lot of time planning out things, right down to
the length of specific cable runs needed in each room on each wall.
There was a TON of networked gear to distribute and connect. Even if
(for the moment) you discount the internet access points, there was
still a lot of work going into cabling, devices, placement, testing,
taping, replacing bad gear, etc. Add back in the connection of AP's and
it was about double the effort I just mentioned. 

Zach, I love the idea of a vendor-supported internet option, but I would
highly recommend that you talk to some of the folks who laid out gear
last year and get their input to understand the tremendous work effort
that went into this on the day before the event. I have huge respect for
everyone who stuck it out into the wee hours of the morning just to make
sure it worked the next day. 

I came in early on Wednesday to help out. I got there in the afternoon,
and I worked until pretty much midnight (let's say, easily, 6 hours)
just laying out the networking for the AP's (i.e., not including the
cameras and pods). And I was one of a team of 6-8 people that night, I
believe. Simply laying out the cabling took a while, and that's
literally just laying all of it on the floor according to diagram. Then
the AP's were placed and balanced, making sure that they were under
chairs, that the matching network cables reached, that the correct ports
were used, that they were near power outlets or extension cords, and so
on. And finally -- what I think was the WORST part -- comes the taping
down of the cabling and power conduits. That took 3-4 people another
maybe 2-3 hours just for that one aspect. And dozens of gaff tape rolls.
Tape was everywhere, including under moveable doors and panels, along
walls, under chairs, across audio cables, on stages, etc. 

If I had to take an educated guess, I'd venture that the cabling and
placement of AP's probably took 45-50 man hours. Not kidding. Most of us
were also trained network admins, so this wasn't like pulling uneducated
folks off the street; we knew what we were doing, and it still took that
long. Your comment about "_All that needs to be done at the show is
place and connect all of the hardware_" is what I'm referring to here:
about 50 hours of work for JUST THAT. Nothing else. :) 

So, while I applaud the enthusiasm and excitement (and especially the
volunteerism!), please keep in mind that this one single aspect of the
show is a HUGE undertaking. If you go into this and gain a sponsor,
you're still going to need a big crew, extremely well-placed and planned
diagrams, and an organized and inventoried stock of cabling and parts. I
completely agree with Ilan on this -- your help is very welcome and
appreciated, but please go into this knowing it's going to be a huge
effort. 

Just my $0.02 anyhow. 

Thanks, 

Bruce Bergman

On 2016-06-18 18:45, SCALE Planning List wrote:

> Hi Zach, 
> 
> Excited to see you're so passionate about building out the SCALE network. We'd love to have you on board on our volunteer team.  Lets sync up and come to consensus on a plan before reaching out to sponsors.  We have a great deal of hardware that we own already and we should get on the same page before we make external requests, especially since many of the hardware vendors sponsor us in other ways at the moment. 
> 
> I'll defer to the current Tech Chair, who is Bala,  on timing but lets schedule a meeting soon. We're just hitting the time of year where we'd normally kick off our event planning for 2017. 
> 
> I believe Bala is traveling this weekend, but I'll add you to the tech list shortly and we can continue discussing how you can best help the team. 
> 
> Thanks again for wanting to make scale awesome. 
> 
> Regards, 
> Ilan 
> 
> Ilan Rabinovitch  
> Conference Chair 
> Southern California Linux Expo 
> 877-831-2569 x110 Voice  
> 818-442-1865 Mobile 
> ilan at linuxfests.org Email 
> 
> --- 
> Ask me about sponsorship and speaking opportunities at LinuxFests.org's upcoming events: 
> DevOps Days SV -  June 24-25, 2016 - Mountain View, CA 
> Texas Linux Fest - July 8-9, 2016, Austin TX 
> SCALE 15x - March 2-5, 2017 - Pasadena, CA 
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 3:50 PM, SCALE Planning List <scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org> wrote:
> 
> Ok now I have a good idea of the size of the network and will go to the two sponsors to make sure I have there buy in.
> 
> On Jun 18, 2016 6:49 PM, "SCALE Planning List" <scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Jun 2016, SCALE Planning List wrote:
> 
> Oh and any documents of network layout from last year. 
> mostly these only exist as paper copies. With all the resignations in Tech after last year (at least 4 significant contributers, including both Chairs), I am about the only one with even a reasonably good idea of how things were setup. Anything else would involve reverse engineering things from the configs. The better approach is to discuss what we want to do with the people interested in the design level of things (ideally in person, a whiteboard is really desirable for this sort of work), and then setup this year's plan from that.
> 
> I believe that I am the only person left who had the router password for this least year, and I never logged into one.
> 
> David Lang
> 
> On Jun 18, 2016 4:35 PM, "SCALE Planning List" <
> scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org> wrote:
> 
> What type and speeds of 2016 internet connection?
> 
> What type of APs used in 2016?
> 
> How many concurrent connected devices were there during 2016?
> 
> What was the cabling like? In ceiling, run along walls on the floor,
> pre-wired drops back to idf/mdf?
> 
> What type of switches were used in 2016?
> 
> Can I get a cad drawing/detailed floor layout of the location?
> 
> Was the network used for things other than wifi and video recording, such
> as, vendors, registration desk, staff or anything else?
> 
> What was the peak lan usage in mbps?
> 
> Total cable length ran in 2016?
> 
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 4:25 PM, SCALE Planning List <
> scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Zach,
> 
> Thanks for your interest in helping with SCALE's network and streaming
> needs.  I'm coping a few folks that can help answer your questions, and let
> you know where planning stands for 2017 and 2018.
> 
> Bala copied here is the interim tech chair, between him, David who
> replied a little bit ago, and myself we  can help share our current plans
> and let you know where we might need help.
> 
> In terms of streaming Michael Proctor, also copied here, leads our A/V
> team which normally run our live streaming and session recordings.  They
> record the sessions using IP cameras, and have most of the editing
> automated via some software they've written. I'm sure they'd love a hand
> with either the automation tooling or staffing our cameras.
> 
> Looking forward to working with you on SCALE 15x.
> 
> Regards,
> Ilan Rabinovitch
> Conference Chair
> Southern California Linux Expo
> 877-831-2569 x110 [1] Voice
> 818-442-1865 [2] Mobile
> ilan at linuxfests.org Email
> 
> ---
> Ask me about sponsorship and speaking opportunities at LinuxFests.org's
> upcoming events:
> DevOps Days SV -  June 24-25, 2016 - Mountain View, CA
> Texas Linux Fest - July 8-9, 2016, Austin TX
> SCALE 15x - March 2-5, 2017 - Pasadena, CA
> 
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 7:19 AM, SCALE Planning List <
> scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org> wrote:
> 
> Can I get the contact info for Stu so I can ask some question of him?
> 
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2016 at 1:18 AM, SCALE Planning List <
> scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org> wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 18 Jun 2016, SCALE Planning List wrote:
> 
> I hope that this is the right place for this.
> 
> I have been asked to reach out the SCALE to see if you all are in need
> of
> help with live streaming, event networking, Wifi or internet access. I
> have
> just finished up doing the South East Linux Fest (SELF) Wifi and was
> contacted by Ubiquiti (a hardware maker) and another company Altispeed
> <http://www.altispeed.com/> about sponsoring the networking needs for
> SCALE.
> 
> As an example of the event networking I have done, here is the post I
> did
> about the SELF2016 network:
> 
> http://community.ubnt.com/t5/UniFi-Stories/SouthEast-Linux-Fest-2016/cns-p/1590779
> 
> Here is some information about what we've done in the past.
> 
> https://www.usenix.org/conference/lisa12/technical-sessions/presentation/lang_david_wireless
> 
> https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/april-2013-volume-38-number-2/wireless-means-radio
> 
> This last year we deployed about 110 access points around the show.
> 
> The Conference center provides the Internet connection, and we have
> paid them to allow us to run everything else.
> 
> There is an opening for them to sponsor some of this. We can definantly
> use help setting up and running things. At the moment, we don't know who
> will be replacing Stu as the person setting up and running the network for
> the show. Michael Proctor-Smith is going to be running the AV group, so he
> will be continuing to spearhead the streaming effort.
> 
> The current plan is to select the new Tech Chair in a month or so.
> 
> David Lang
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Scale-planning at lists.linuxfests.org
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--
Zach Underwood (RHCE,RHCSA,RHCT,UACA)
My website <http://zachunderwood.me>
advance-networking.com [3]

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--
Zach Underwood (RHCE,RHCSA,RHCT,UACA)
My website <http://zachunderwood.me>
advance-networking.com [3]

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Links:
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