Author Archive: Robert Ballecer, SJ
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Apr 2nd, 2009 | Robert Ballecer, SJFirst posted on TheTechStop.net
We’ve all heard the “N-Dance” in the world of wireless. We’ve patiently waited through “Draft-N” and “Pre-N”, “Kinda-N” and “Our-best-guess-as-to-what-it-will-finally-be-N.” To us who have been deploying the best in wireless gear for the last few years, the elusive 802.11n standard has been long in promise, but short in delivery: an almost comical delay of a much needed technology that has spawned a family of non-standard standards.
Well now that “N” has officially “almost arrived” (and I can’t believe I was actually able to write that without breaking out into laughter) with a scheduled ratification date of “sometime in January 2010″ we’re starting to see the big players in Enterprise wireless commit serious engineering resources into making their gear ready for the switch.
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To be sure, the allure of “N” over previous 802.11 standards is great: an increase in the maximum theoretical data rate from 54 to 600 Mbps, the more efficient use of MIMO (Multiple In, Multiple Out), 40 MHz channel bonding, the ability to use both the 2.4GHz and much-less-crowded 5GHz spectrums, and Spatial Division Multiplexing. — All of this is an uberGeek way of saying, “damn that’s fast!”
But wait… while the 802.11n standard is exciting for those who are looking forward to gobs of wireless bandwidth, the experience wireless deployment team knows from first-hand experience that a faster wireless technology just isn’t enough. While 802.11n may reach stratospheric levels of speed in the lab, it quickly falls to earth once it’s forced to work in the real world. Existing wireless gear, the odd telecom device, portable phones and even microwaves will flood the available wireless spectrum and quickly make a mess of the most carefully planned wireless networks.
In the past the solution has been to add access points, increase transmit power, or to simply write off wireless as a “best effort” technology — unsuitable for mission-critical applications and unreliable in a crowd. In fact, there is really only one way to increase the usability of wireless gear: to use the limited spectrum more efficiently.
Originally posted at TheTechStop.net
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At a hidden location in Fremont, California — known only to the nerdiest of the geek herd — exists a world that defies explaination. It’s filled with an army of networking geeks (most of whom are unpaid volunteers), a few million dollars worth of enterprise-level networking gear, a ton of snacks, and enough IT experience to make Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs seem like n00bs.
I am of course writing of the Interop Hot Stage: a grueling 2-week exercise in best-practices meets rapid deployment. For two weeks the elite of IT will gather at a stuffy warehouse to design, build and test the largest temporary network in the world with the latest and greatest IT gear from around the industry.
Stay tuned for more details… in the meantime, here are a few pics to set the scene…
When I look at the familiar faces of the “Interop Family” it’s hard to believe that some of these guys and gals have been doing this show since I was in high school. That somebody would volunteer for the show is understandable, it brings a wealth of knowledge and potential for learning alongside some of the best in the industry… but to think that some of these uberGeeks have been coming back year after stress-filled year just shows how much of a good time can be had when you’re working long, hard, and stressful hours while shoulder-to-shoulder at “Geek Summer Camp.”
Here are a few pictures to let you see behind the scenes at Interop…
You can find the full album at TheTechStop.net
By this time, the majority of the equipment that makes up the Interop enet should be loaded onto trucks on their way to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. We’ve also got a small commune of uberGeeks ready and willing to dedicate two weeks of their lives to reassembling, testing, running and troubleshooting the network in a place that should average about 115 degrees. It’ll be long 15 hour days stinging fiber, terminating copper, dodging forklifts and anything else needed to make the packets flow.
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You can see the complete album at TheTechStop.net
Sugar, caffeine and gigawatts of power — what could be better?!?!
Here are a few more pics for you to file away in your “what are they doing” folder.
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You can find the complete album at TheTechStop.net
The Interop network isn’t built in a day. In fact, it isn’t even built in a week. It takes almost two weeks of early morning, sleepless nights and careful planning to design, assemble and test the largest temporary network in the world…. and that’s just to get it to the point where it’s ready to ship to Las Vegas!
Here are a few pics to give you an idea of what goes on behind the scenes.
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You can see the complete album at TheTechStop.net
Ahhh Spring (almost) — In California that means that the flowers are starting to bloom, the hybrid vehicles are getting a diaper-rubdown, and the uberGeeks who build the Interop enet have descended upon a nondescript warehouse in Belmont to undergo a yearly geek equivilant of summer camp.
It’s time for Hotstage!
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See more of these fascinating Interop Pictures at TheTechStop.net.
Written by Padre @ TheTechStop.net
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You may think that this is going to be a blog about the techno-wonderfullness of a piece of network gear — but it’s not…. well… mostly not… |
| Xirrus showed up at Interop New York 2006 with more than a little skepticism about their potential performance in the wireless hell that is Interop. The last few years of the conference has been plagued by the inevitable collapse of the b/g spectrum almost as quickly as each show had begun — there were simply too many attendees with wireless cards, too many vendors with APs cranked to their maximum power settings, and not enough spectrum to go around. |  |
While many vendors had been trying to solve the spectrum problem by deploying MANY APs across the show floor and classroom areas, Xirrus instead placed 24 radios within a single AP, gave each radio a slice of the 360 degrees, made them all share 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports, and had them communicate with one another to dynamically configure their own power levels to maximize coverage and minimize interference. Though many of us secretly wondered if the Xirrus “flying saucers” would last at all in the cacophony of the Javits center, New York 2006 proved the soundness of the Xirrus approach.— The system stayed up throughout the show and wireless problems were kept to a minimum.
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Because of their success in New York, Xirrus came to Interop Las Vegas 2007 with high expectations from the Interop team. We wanted to see if their gear, resoundingly successful at the Javits, could stand the much larger wireless tangle of the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. But before they did that, they had to contend with a threat they had not previously encountered…. |
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The Red Baron. |  |
You see, unbeknownst to the Xirrus crew, one of our Team Leads has put in several years of service for the CIA, NSA, WSA and several other three-letter government agencies that specialize in blowing things up, covering things over and shooting things down. Seeing the Xirrus “Flying Saucers” evidently brought back some kind of traumatic event or flashback because once Xirrus has setup one of their APs 25 feet in the air the Red Baron wasted no time in blowing that sucka out of the sky…
| With a crash and a puff of blue smoke, the mighty wireless donut came crashing down from the heavens. Here you can see the damage done to the saucer after its “unscheduled landing.” |  |
Of course, the rest of the engineers all thought that they gear was toast… after all, the gaping hole in the casing and the familiar smell of ozone told us that this UFO wasn’t going to make it back to the mothership — we all believed that the Red Baron had claimed another victim.
However, it was not to be… once the Xirrus engineers cracked open the case and reinserted a few boards, the UFO lit up and was again serving out wireless goodness. (Minus one Gigabit Ethernet port —- hey, the blue smoke had to come from SOMEWHERE!)
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The Xirrus engineers had asked us not to take pictures of the AP with its case off, but they forgot that we had installed an Axis PTZ camera behind their workstation. |  |
So… after this experience, it wasn’t a surprise to any of us that Xirrus did just fine at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center for Interop Las Vegas 2007. Their APs stayed up. The people were connected. The wireless tangle was made a little more neat — Take that Snoopy!
Originally posted on TheTechStop.net
The Interop crew is will into setup at our super-secret facilities in California. It’s late (or early) and I’m tired, so I’m just going to post a few pictures that will hopefully give you a teaser of what you can expect on the Interop.net blog as well as on TheTechStop.net
Stay Tuned!
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Full article @ TheTechStop.net
Interop Las Vegas 2007 is just over two months away, so I guess it’s time to start gathering all our techno-eggs into the basket that we call “Hot Stage.” For two week, the engineers of Interop will descend upon the Interop warehouse and piece together the most advanced temporary network in the world. With millions of dollars of equipment being generously supplied by our Vendor-Sponsors, everything from the latest in wireless to the fastest in switching, Hot Stage is somewhat of an uberGeek Christmas.
Still… sometimes even uberGeeks need a little bling.
TheTechStop.net received a NV+ from Infrant Technologies to evaluate as a potential “Support Solution” for Interop — basically, we wanted to bring in gear that could show off the amazing capabilities of the InteropNet — We were so impressed by the stability, security and performance of the box, that we featured it in an episode of gadget, an IPTV show that caters to uberGeeks.
If you’re looking for high-performance RAID storage for your SMB, you need to take a look at the NV+ — check out the episode and decide for yourself if its what you need for your network.
