Archive for the ‘wireless’ Category
-
tech•ed and the IPocalypse: What you need to know.
As planning for tech•ed 2011 in September this year has formally commenced I’m again in the role of being responsible for the technology across the whole event (including the Australian Partner Conference).
Each year I’ve challenged our technical team to try something risky to keep us honest about leading with first rate technology implementation and practice. You can see our success on this blog and numerous press articles.
The first challenge I’ve identified this year is to move the whole event from a NAT’d network to a full blown public routed network, similar to what you see with an ISP. We’ve based this looking at last years usage pattern on our networks , and after some research we’ve come to this conclusion due to the lack of sensibly priced devices that can support 8000+ clients with many port mappings.
To some extent we achieved part of this last year with giving everyone a public routable ipv6 address with all ipv4 still being NAT’d. Our key requirement to support approximately 2500 delegates a few hundred staff and many, many ip enabled devices it to acquire a large range of pubic ip’s in the order of a /19, /18 or /17 giving us 8192 or 16384, 32768 respectively, possible clients to support (if you don’t understand see CIDR).
Now the impending exhaustion of ipv4 address space commonly referred to as the IPocalypse you can imagine this kind of addressable space is not easily obtainable – and can sometimes even go for a high price . Last year we requested a temporary allocation from APNIC out of their portable/temporary range, which we used for a couple of weeks and shortly after returned. As a side note that same temporary range was used by LinuxConf in Brisbane a few months later, however sites like speedtest.net still cached the Microsoft tech•ed entry at the event…
In our manner of planning ahead, last week we initiated our request to APNIC for a /17 or /18 or /19, as well as a temporary ipv6 allocation.. This was the response from APNIC.(note that the names and contact details have been scrubbed to protect the not so innocent – of course read from the ) ;
From: xxxxx@xxxxx Date: Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 11:47 AM Subject: [APNIC #XXXXXX] Temporary IPv4 and IPv6 allocation for Microsoft TechEd To: xxxxx@xxxx.xxx Dear XXXXXXX, Thank you for your email reply. There is no IPv4 address space available for temporary allocation. This reserved address space is no longer available as it has been placed back in the APNIC free pool for distribution. Please let us know if you wish to continue to obtain a temporary /48 IPv6 assignment from APNIC. We look forward to hear back from you. If you have and further questions, please let us know. Kind Regards, -- ____________________________________________________________________ APNIC sip: http://www.apnic.net _____________________________________________________________________ * Sent by email to save paper. Print only if necessary. On Wed Mar 23 10:06:01 2011, xxxx@xxxx.xx wrote: > Hi XXXX, > > What is the largest v4 block you can offer? > > I was under the understanding that APNIC had a block of space parked for > temporary uses like this event (the netblock we used at TE last year was > used at LinuxConf this year). > > XXXXXX. > > On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 10:01 AM, XXXX XX via RT wrote: > > > Dear XXXXX, > > > > Thank you for your email. > > > > In regards to your request, due to the APNIC reaching Stage 2 of the > > IPv4 Exhaustion plan, APNIC are unable to provide a temporary /17 IPv4 > > allocation. > > > > However, we are able to provide you a temporary /48 IPv6 assignment. > > > > Please let us know if you wish to continue to obtain a temporary /48 > > IPv6 assignment from APNIC. > > > > We look forward to hear back from you. > > > > If you have any questions, please let us know. > > > > Kind Regards, > > > > -- > > _____________________________________________________________________ > > APNIC sip: > > http://www.apnic.net phone: > > fax: > > _____________________________________________________________________ > > > > * Sent by email to save paper. Print only if necessary. > > On Tue Mar 22 11:39:03 2011, xxxx@xxxx.xxx wrote: > > > Hi there, > > > > > > We are in planning stages for Microsoft TechEd 2011 to be held in the > > > Gold Coast Convention Centre this year. As per last year we would like > > > to obtain a temporary allocation for use at the event. > > > > > > We are seeking the following: > > > > > > * IPv6 /48 > > > * IPv4 /17 > > > > > > The earliest date we would be using these addresses is the 1st of July > > > 2011. > > > > > > We would return the addresses on the 16th of September 2011. > > > > > > Could you please advise what you require for this allocation and when > > > it might be approved so that we can do our physical network design.
So that’s it then – no more ipv4 space for us. We’ve committed to the path of deploying a fully routed network so it looks like it will be an: IPv6 ONLY network!
We are working really hard to make sure that the key resources for the event (the schedule builder, for example) are available over IPv6.
As for other purposes not directly related to the event, we will not be offering IPv4 connectivity.
There will be an option to purchase time on Telstra NextG USB dongles at the event and we are working hard on coming up with a good sponsorship arrangement to help out with the cost of IPv4 network access during tech•ed.
- Jorke and the network team aka David Connors
-
Infrastructure Saturday 2010 Slide Deck
We had a great time at Infrastructure Saturday on the 6th of November. An epic amount of work was put in by one Mr Mark Rhodes to make the event the success that it was.
The slide deck from our presentation is available here:
Infrastructure Saturday tech•ed Backstage 2010
Ben Parker presented quite a few slides on the enterprise software stack on DemoNet – content that we really missed out on delivering at the event.
We hope you enjoyed the talk – No evals through yet but in the wrap up a guy said that he gave us all “1″s because he thought that was the top score (not 5!) Doh!
-
Tech•Ed backstage 2010 – VOC208 – The Presentation
We did a talk on the infrastructure behind TechEd 2010 as one of the very last sessions of the event.
The video is available here: http://www.msteched.com/2010/Australia/voc208
The whole talk was very much ‘by the seat of our pants’ as we were insanely busy. Ben Parker, unfortunately, could not make it on stage due to other work commitments at the event. This was a real shame as he is ‘the man’ when it comes to the IT Pro side of the MS Enterprise software stack.
Unbelievably (given the rushed presentation and that most of the slide deck was a re-heated user group presentation I delivered a few months ago because we ran out of time ), we managed to score the #2 spot out of 165 sessions at the event, with an “Overall Satisfaction” of 4.74 out of 5. This is a great result but I cannot help but think there was a lot of other more deserving content at the event that probably should have rated higher.
We had a lot of good laughs – half of them at my expense. The notorious review comment from ARC301 came back to haunt me (2m 20s in … Thanks Jorke
)Evaluation scores follow:
VOC208 Tech•Ed backstage 2010!Friday, August 27 13:45 – 15:00Central ADavid Connors, Ben Parker, Jorke OdolphiAttendance Count:Questions Q10 Overall, I was satisfied with this Session. Q20 The speaker was knowledgeable about the subject matter. Q30 The speaker’s presentation skills helped me better understand the material. Q40 The session was effective in demonstrating the product, technology and/or solution. Q50 The knowledge/skills I gained are relevant to my role. Q60 This session was worth the investment of my time. Q70 I will recommend this session to others. Q80 Please provide additional constructive comments, suggestions, feedback. Overall Results
Evals Submitted Q10 Q20 Q30 Q40 Q50 Q60 Q70 19 4.74 4.74 4.58 4.68 4.53 4.53 4.58 Rollup Results
Question Avg % Strongly Disagree % Disagree % Neutral % Agree % Strongly Agree Num. Submitted Overall, I was satisfied with this Session. 4.74 26.32 73.68 19 The speaker was knowledgeable about the subject matter. 4.74 26.32 73.68 19 The speaker’s presentation skills helped me better understand the material. 4.58 5.26 5.26 15.79 73.68 19 The session was effective in demonstrating the product, technology and/or solution. 4.68 5.26 21.05 73.68 19 The knowledge/skills I gained are relevant to my role. 4.53 10.53 26.32 63.16 19 This session was worth the investment of my time. 4.53 15.79 15.79 68.42 19 I will recommend this session to others. 4.58 15.79 10.53 73.68 19 Comments
Please provide additional constructive comments, suggestions, feedback. Great look at the unsung heroes of etched. Great way to finish the conference. Great session to end Tech Ed on. More of an FYI session than a learning one but still really enjoyed it and found it interesting. interesting to know how the backend stuff is deployed so if i ever need to do something on a similar scale i will have an inkling of what to do Need to use standard template – one used very hard to read. This session was brilliant – I saw just how much work went into Tech.Ed to get it going, made me even more appreciative of you all! Wicked stuff! -
Frankly Speaking Episode 42
Andrew Coates and Michael Kordahi interviewed Jorke and I for their Frankly Speaking podcast. Tune in and listen; hopefully I was making sense with the amount of sleep I did have at that point of the events.
-
tech•ed 2010 / APC 2010 IT Press Round Up
Here is a quick collection of the press articles specifically about the infrastructure. There are a lot of others about Windows Phone 7 etc but we didn’t list those here.
- Microsoft Tech.Ed 2010 network shouldered the load, IT Wire:
http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/networking/41617-microsoft-teched-2010-network-shouldered-the-load - Tech Ed tames torrent leechers, IT News:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/229928,tech-ed-tames-torrent-leechers.aspx - Microsoft Tech.Ed 2010 goes IPv6, ZDNet:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/microsoft-tech-ed-2010-goes-ipv6-339305258.htm - How do they do IT: Microsoft’s Tech.Ed goes IPv6, Computer World:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/357238/how_do_they_do_it_microsoft_tech_ed_goes_ipv6/
This is a pretty good summary of the event in general:
More write-ups coming … no, really!
- Microsoft Tech.Ed 2010 network shouldered the load, IT Wire:
-
IPv6 – bringing a horse to water..
So you may have seen some press here , here and here around work that we’re doing at teched bringing brave new world of IPv6 to the delegate experience.
Why are we doing this?
It’s well know that ipv4 address space is running out, while this is problematic for service providers and telcos – in our opinion it also as just as big a problem for application developers.
So this is our challenge this year – giving every delegate the chance to experience this first hand. We’ll be giving full native IPv6 addresses for each and every device that can support it.
We’ve learnt a LOT about the ins and outs of IPv6, those learning will be transparently displayed on this blog as per our normal policy.
If you’re at Tech.Ed you can check this out by going to http://ip6.me or http://www.v6.facebook.com and see the IP address you get!
I also hope you’ll enjoy our planned IPv6 celebration hours we’ll have during the event, where only IPv6 will be available on the network!
- The Backstage team.
-
tech•ed backstage @ BigAU – Tues 13th July 2010!
I will be presenting tech•ed backstage at the Brisbane Infrastructure Group. Guess appearances may include Nathan Wright from GCCEC and Ben Parker from Parker Tech Pty Ltd
Venue
Microsoft, Level 9, 1 Eagle Street, Waterfront Place, Brisbane City.
Time
1700 for Pizza.
Date
Tuesday, 13th of July 2010Further details on #BigAU.
I’ll be covering off stuff that happened last year, stuff that’s happening this year + our wins and losses. Shock/Horror! I actually have some good news re Cisco WLCs this time around too!
See you there!
-
abducted. returned. changed.
Toothless slack-jawed yokels win again
Cisco 4404 Marketing Poster
Long time readers of this blog (and the tech•ed 2009 team who have to put up with my whinging) will know that we had a significant number of challenges getting the wifi at GCCEC up to a scratch. Today I am happy to announce, however, that we have had a win. The 5508 delivers in the areas the 4404 didn’t. Read the rest of this entry »
-
Random wireless network commissioning bits
(This post has been in my drafts since last week … we’re post commissioning on wireless now)
One of these things is not like the other one…
We recently mentioned that we completed deleting the WLC from the wireless equation at the venue. In rolling our the custom configs to the 50 autonomous devices we found that one of them returned an error.
One of these things is not like the other ones
-
When I said 16 percent I meant … 16 percent
You will recall our earlier posts regarding the performance problems with the Cisco WLC at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre. If you’ve not seen them catch up here:
- Making Wireless Work
- Diagnosing and resolving extremely high RF utilisation
- Resolving a Hunch– Wi-Fi Performance @ GCCEC
Insufficient Traction Error
We had been working extensively with a number of suppliers to get the WLC issues resolved. To be honest, I reached the end of my tether some time ago as every call seemed to revolve around either co-channel interference (so much so that is now the standard butt of jokes on the tech team … car won’t start? co-channel inteference :\), or some discussion of why there were methodological defects in the reports we’d written rather than just focusing on the obvious @#(*&@ issue. Read the rest of this entry »
-
Resolving a hunch – wifi performance @ GCCEC
Previously you will recall we talked about the methodology we used to diagnose why the RF utilisation at GCCEC was so stratospherically high in relation to the actual wifi network utilisation and number of associated clients. In the last moments of that day on site we did observe a few anomalies with regards to real-world network performance. Given that the wireless infrastructure is state of the art and was one of the first “enterprise” deployments of 802.11n in Australia 12 months ago – this was odd and definitely warranted further investigation before the event even if to find there wasn’t a problem at all.
We left Brisbane bright and early on Thursday the 16th of July to spend a day with the guys from GCCEC to get to the bottom of this latest issue.
-
What is CCX and why should you care?
Early on in the history of wifi Cisco created some proprietary extensions called CCX (Cisco Compatible Extensions). These are now an open standard that a lot of network card manufacturers implement. If you’re bringing your own laptop to the event you should make sure you have CCX-4 compliant drivers, here’s why …
-
Diagnosing and resolving extremely high RF utilisation
What’s wrong with these pictures?
Per AP TX/RX figures with channel utilisation across the ground floor of GCCEC
Number of Client Associations across the ground floor of GCCEC
I was given logon access to the WCS console at GCCEC at the start of May this year. Shortly (10 minutes) later I started e-mailing “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!” messages to the venue and the tech•ed technology team.
-
site visit for tech•ed AND APC
This year we are lucky enough to be using the GCCEC for two large Microsoft events, that are a week apart; the Australian Partner Conference (APC) and tech•ed and as you can guess this gives us a huge amount of efficiency on how we run the event with benefits in shared infrastructure and environments. We’ll have a huge breakdown later in this blogs life talking about how we utilise this shared environment and assign the costs, but that’s not for this post. Read the rest of this entry »
-
Making wireless work
If you’re interested in tech•ed and have been reading the blogosphere you’ll know that every paying delegate is scoring an awesome HP Mini 2140 as a freebie! This is fantastic news for delegates and a real headache for the propeller heads behind tech•ed. We now know that we’re going to have 2500 laptops, plus delegate’s bringing their own laptops, plus wifi-enabled mobile phones, plus Microsoft staff, speakers, crew, and all of the leechers holiday-makers in Gold Coast apartments across the road to cater for as wireless users.
Read the rest of this entry » -
Tech•Ed09 Netbooks
So it is pretty well known that for this year Tech•Ed that paying delegates will receive a HP Mini-note 2140 for everyone to experience the Windows 7 Experience. Big shout out to Nick Hodge for his hard work in getting this over the line. But as we’re over the legal and compliance fun, its down to ensuring we give the best experience to every single person that receives a mini-note.
As you can well imagine there are many factors we need to consider when we’re expecting ~2500 machines to be delivered to end users in 5 days… And this will be a main theme of quite a few posts on this blog as it presents quite a few unique challenges.
- Wireless Network planning – a LOT of work is been done to mitigate risks around this
- Help Desk – Providing support around these machines including DOA’s
- Power and Charging – Ensuring these machines will be charged up enough at hand out and there are enough power points around the venue.
- Handing Out to Delegates – People flow!
- Imaging – how to get the image onto the machines, luckily we have Jeffa helping us here as the “Build Czar”
This is a start to the planning we’ve made, let us know what you want to hear about. To start with, the question everyone wants to hear about.. WIRELESS!
- jorke
Australian Partner Conference 2009 auteched brain damage cabling CCX chrysophobia cisco codify gccec HP mini-note imaging internet internet connectivity ipv6 jomablue liveid microsoft nat netbooks networking odd issues planning power rras tech.ed teched Tech•Ed telstra wireless wlan
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.
Archives
- August 2011 (4)
- June 2011 (1)
- April 2011 (1)
- November 2010 (1)
- October 2010 (1)
- September 2010 (4)
- August 2010 (3)
- July 2010 (1)
- March 2010 (2)
- February 2010 (2)
- September 2009 (22)
- August 2009 (11)
- July 2009 (8)