SCinet Status

Overview of Status

07/15/96

Work is well underway for providing network support for SUPERCOMPUTING '96. Over the past few months, we have focused on the following technical aspects of the project:

Wiring for the Convention Center
Overall network design, both High Speed and Commodity network infrastructure for the Hotel, Convention Center Meeting Rooms, and Convention Center Show floor.
Initial design and support G-WAAT (Global Wide Area Application Testbed) activities.
Solicitation of equipment from a wide range of vendors.
Securing a donation of local access infrastructure, specifically and OC-48 ring, from TCG, Pittsburgh.
Lining up volunteers to help before, during and after the show. Areas in which we need volunteers are listed below.

Wiring the David Lawrence Convention Center

As in past years, we plan to provide complete network infrastructure for the conference, from commodity network (ethernet) infrastructure in the Hotel, to high speed network infrastructure on the Show floor. We have divided the network infrastructure into three components: the hotel, the Convention Center Meeting Rooms, and the Show floor.

Hotel

Conveniently, the Doubletree Hotel is renovating many of their meeting rooms this summer. We are working with the Hotel management to install permanent wiring into most, if not all, the meeting rooms. Currently, we are working out an arrangement whereby, SCinet would provide the materials and the Hotel would provide the labor, for installing the network connections in the rooms. These rooms will be used not only for the various Keynote Speeches and Plenaries, but also in support of the Education Sessions.

Convention Center Wiring

We have worked out an arrangement with the David Lawrence Convention Center to install permanent wiring in the meeting rooms. The convention center will provide all the labor, with SCinet providing the materials and some volunteer help with the design and overall technical oversight of the project. The project is scheduled to begin on July 17 and be completed by the end of July. This project is currently being headed up by Ken Goodwin from the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

Show floor

We are working with a number of vendors and volunteers to design both the commodity infrastructure (ethernet) and high speed infrastructure (FDDI, ATM, HiPPI) for the Show floor. We hope to have the design completed by the end of July. We have lined up a number of vendors to provide equipment donations and will begin publishing the design and list by the end of July.

Volunteers

We have dividing SCinet up into a number of areas. In each area we will have a group leader along with a number of volunteers. Below is a brief description of the various areas. Please send mail to Wendy Huntoon if you are interested in volunteering. Please indicate you area or areas of interest.

DNS

Support of Domain Names Services along with other network services. This will include: IP and name assignment prior to the conference, configuring and supporting the DNS servers before and during the conference, along with fielding DNS questions once the conference begins.

NOC

Network Operations Center. This area actually includes two sections: trouble ticketing and help desk and technical configuration and support for the NOC. The NOC will be the heart of the show network. It will house most of the switchers, routers, bridges associated with SCinet along with providing a single point of contact for Exhibitors and researchers who have questions or problems with the network. Skills required for the NOC include:

experience with trouble ticketing systems,
system administration in support of network services and management platforms,
network hardware experience for setting up and supporting core network infrastructure.
Routing
Design, implementation and general help for internal and external routing configurations.
Physical
General support for wiring, connecting, physical infrastructure particularly the week before and during the show.
Requirements
Collecting, organizing, etc booth network requirements.
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