Re: [Debconf-team] Questions about the Cape Town bid
On 01/17/2015 09:49 AM, Richard Hartmann wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> do I understand correctly that save for the day trip and conference
> dinner, UCT Upper Campus is self-contained and would allow us to stay
> on-campus 24/7?
Yes, it's totally possible. Since the center of town is so close, with
hundreds of interesting restaurants and pubs, I suspect a number of
people will wander off-campus for dinner, and then end the evening with
final drinks at the on-campus pub. (This is our thinking in planning
conference-supplied shuttles on free evenings.)
> How far are Jammie Hall, Leslie 2a, and Snape LT1 by foot and other means?
Walking from the residences to the main building (Chemical Engineering)
you will pass both Leslie and Snape. Snape is adjacent to the main
building. Leslie is just below Snape, so about 2.5 minutes from the
residences and 2.5 minutes from the main building.
Jammie Hall is also about half-way between the residences and the main
building, along a slightly different route.
> I don't think it's good to have per-user logins managed by the
> university; can we get confirmation that setting up our own eduroam
> realm would be OK?
> Even better if we could establish our own SSID on their infrastructure.
>
> Is it possible to get firewall exemptions? At least for our servers,
> better for just everyone.
Graham Inggs, who is on the dc16 Cape Town bid team, is the UCT
Engineering faculty sysadmin. It sounds like we have quite a bit of
flexibility to do just about anything we need to the network during our
period of use, including rewiring the ports in some rooms onto a
separate network. We have talked about the possibility of dropping in
our own dedicated 5.2GHz wifi network (all the access points in the
building have secondary slots for 5.2GHz cards which are currently
empty). Graham is still investigating what's possible.
> Are the same assumptions/answers correct for UCT Breakwater?
We would likely have less flexibility to modify the network at UCT
Breakwater or TechnoPark, about equivalent what we'd get at any hotel.
> How does external catering compare to in-house catering, price-wise?
> It seems as if external is quite a bit more expensive. Is this due to
> missing infrastructure or just negotiations? To put it another way,
> what is a realistic guess of food cost for UCT Upper Campus?
External catering will ultimately be about equal or cheaper than the
in-house catering options. It's faster to pin down a set price with
in-house catering, but we have less flexibility to shop around for
cheaper options and more variety. We're still collecting bids, but the
lowest so far comes in at about 15 Euros per day, per person.
> If you could choose the DebConf date freely, would UCT Upper Campus be
> available during other times as well?
The dates of availability for UCT main campus are strictly limited by
school holidays. TechnoPark or UCT Breakwater would be available at any
time we choose.
> In general, I think you have a preference order of
>
> 1) UCT Upper Campus
> 2) TechnoPark
> 3) UCT Breakwater
>
> is this correct?
I think that'd be Bernelle's order of preference. I'd probably put UCT
Breakwater above TechnoPark, because it's located right in the center of
one of Cape Town's busiest areas for restaurants, bars, and fun family
activities. But, they are otherwise pretty much equivalently good.
> How likely are you to work on developing 2) and 3)? Are they backups
> in case UCT Upper Campus does not work out or are they possibilities
> in their own right?
The two alternates are both possibilities in their own right. The main
reasons UCT main campus is top of the list is because of connections
with staff at the university, which give us free use of the venue, and
more flexibility with network setup in the venue building.
Thanks,
Allison
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