What does it take to roll out a network for an estimated crowd of 600 that will only be used for one business day?

The Connection

Our venue is served by a direct fiber optic link that runs back to Dolphini Networks’ data center in Cummins Station. On the day of the event the Sommet Center’s internal network will be bypassed to allow us unfettered access to the Internet.

The Network

Inside the conference space the BarCamp attendees will be served by six wireless access points. When you get to the conference choose either www.dynedge.com or www.datacus.net those are the access points that belong to our sponsor, Dynamic Edge.

Right now the plan is to serve primarily wireless ‘g’ adapters. We have plans to have some limited access to 802.11b adapters. We do not plan on offering 802.11a or 802.11n connections. If you happen to have an ‘n’ adapter or feel like the limited support of ‘b’ connections is too limited let us know beforehand by replying to this post. Obviously what we want to do is cover as many people as possible while keeping the network simple and fast.

All of this will be tied together with Dynamic Edge’s favorite POE switchgear and a Debian GNU/Linux based router.

The Cabling

The night before the conference we will be running ethernet to specific points in the conference to address needs of sponsors, audio (yes, more on the audio later…), video crews and speaking podiums. Our cabling sponsor, All Around Cabling, will be running several hundred feet of Cat5e (or Cat6) for all of these locations.

The Power

We are currently working on power infrastructure for all of the attendees. There will be the opportunity to charge your laptops, phones and anything else you can shake a stick at or plug into a NEMA 5-15 receptacle. (Sorry, can’t support you if you’re bringing something that needs a 20 amp circuit. Really, why would you bring something like that to BarCamp? Leave the server or industrial cappuccino machine at home.)