Re: HD network meeting: 18 Sep 14:00–16:00
Hi,
today, we met at the Jugendherberge Heidelberg to discuss the network
connection of the Jugendherberge during Debconf with the possibility
of building permanent infrastructure so that the hostel can profit
from Debconf even after we have left.
Aside from four Debian people including myself, we had Mr. Rodine from
the hostel and his Boss, the managing director of the hostel, we had
Mr. Peeck from Heidelberg University's network team, the networking
people from Heidelberg Zoo and the hostel's lead electrician.
Currently, the hostel has a network backbone built from multimode
fiber, concentrating in two infrastructure racks, one in the main
building below the main conference rooms, and another in a server
compartment that can (only) be reached from the big conference room.
The connections from the infrastructure racks to the actual rooms are
copper.
The internal network used for hostel administration has a direct
commercial connection to the hostel organization, which is probably an
MPLS connection that will _only_ connect to the organization network,
and will not be avaliable for guests or Debconf.
Guets get Internet via dedicated infrastructure featuring a Security
Appliance and an LTE uplink with limited capacity, both bandwidth and
volume wise. This is most probably not enough for an event that makes
heavy use of the Internet like Debconf.
To build things for Debconf, things look actually quite good. BelWue,
the network/internet provider of the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg is
willing to provide Debconf with at least a temporary uplink with the
option of a permanent link. The challenge is that the BelWue POP is in
the datacenter of Heidelberg University, which is a few kilometers
away.
Thankfully, Heidelberg Zoo is currently building a fiber network that
will reach out right to the fence to the hostel. They have empty pipes
already in place and plan to blow fiber through them in the first
quarter of 2015. On the other side, they're going to connect to the
University network.
The hostel seems to already have empty pipes from the right place of
the fence to the building. They'll investigate if the two pipes that
surface just at the right places actually connect to each other. If
that is true, it is nearly trivial to get (single mode) fiber pulled
from the university datacenter to the infrastructure room near the big
conference room where a connection to the hostel's internal network
can be made.
University Heidelberg needs to clear with their internal processes
whether it would be possible to provide a layer 2 link (Gigabit
Ethernet) from the BelWue POP to the hostel either for debconf or as a
permanent link. That'll take a few weeks up to months, and would
probably be speeded up if we can prove the Gemeinnützigkeit of our
Verein.
In my experience, BelWue is extremely cooperative for events like that
and I think that we have made a big step forward towards better
network connectivity for Debconf. I have offered to the hostel to
attend additional meetings regarding the network link and to help with
building the actual infrastructure, so we have a close connection to
the work going on.
If there are additional questions, or whether I forgot to mention
things, people will help ,-)
Greetings
Marc
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Marc Haber | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
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