The first-ever temporary network to offer Gigabit Ethernet fiber connectivity to the desktop was showcased at the Networld + Interop show earlier this year in Las Vegas. In recent years, Networld + Interop has used a structured fiber-optic cable system as the show-floor backbone, with copper providing 100-Mbit connections to the individual exhibitors. To reduce installation time and save space, show producer Key3Media Events switched to the Volition fiber-optic cabling system from 3M (www.3M.com/volition).
"With a conventional solution, you wouldn't even want to think about trying to do 200 field terminations in one day," said Geoff Horne, senior network engineer for Key3Media. "With the Volition system, we got the job done with time to spare. The cost per meter is also much less than conventional fiber, and the patch panels take up only one-quarter of the rack space." For Gigabit deployment, the network design uses fiber-optic media to its fullest by deploying a centralized backbone architecture from the network operation center (NOC). This saves switch ports and provides for fast switchover in case of a problem.
The week-long event a the Las Vegas Convention Center is recognized as a comprehensive event for networking, internet, and telecommunications professionals. It brings together buyers and sellers of end-to-end networking products, technologies, and services to do business, receive education, and put innovation to work through interactive exhibits and demonstrations.
Networld + Interop 2003 provided straightforward and highly relevant technology education at the event, starting with the InteropNet Event Network (eNet). The eNet is the world's largest rapid-deployment network. Showcasing the capabilities of 14 networking industry vendors, the eNet brings high-speed connectivity to exhibit floors, conference production staff, demo areas, classrooms, conference rooms, attendee messaging centers, and workstations scattered through the exhibit halls.
Within the last few years Key3Media originally pioneered the fiber-optic solution in the conference and classroom areas of the event. Because of the short installation time frame available -- approximately six hours -- and the need to reconfigure the cabling several times during the event, these areas presented a challenge. For example, several classrooms that are normally separated may be combined for a special event such as a keynote speech. When traditional SC or ST fiber-optic solutions were used for linking these remote areas, the time needed to make each cable termination made it difficult to complete the work in the time available. Switching to Volition products resolved this problem because termination is faster. The cables are about as easy to terminate as copper cabling.
On the show floor, Networld + Interop has traditionally used a custom-designed hybrid network that had a fiber-optic backbone with Category 5 copper connectivity to exhibit booths. Those older, traditional fiber cables were also easy to damage during installation yet were difficult and expensive to replace. The fiber cabling and connectors cost between five to ten times the cost of basic copper cabling.
"I guess we had gotten used to the extra time required to isntall the structured cabling system," Horne said. "What really motivated us to make the change was the fact that we had run out of rack space. In the past, each of the 19 patch panels took up five rack units of space, which was more than we could tolerate since we needed to fit in other additional equipment. Our experience with Volition fiber had already shown us that it is inexpensive and very easy to terminate. The compact connectors mean that patch panels only occupy one-and-a-quarter rack units, which saved all the space we needed and then some. Most importantly, the low cost and ease of termination of Volition fiber made it possible to provide Gigabit fiber connectivity to our exhibitors for the first time. So it was easy to make the decision to move to Volition as our exclusive source of fiber cabling for the 2003 event."
Horne designed a centralized network architecture that takes advantage of the capabilities of the fiber cabling. The original network ws built around the limitations of the conventional fiber-optic and copper cabling and subdivided into workgroups, each with its own switch. This network was similar to most permanent networks in that 80 percent or more of the traffic moved to the backbone, while only a small percentage remained within the workgroup.
The long-distance capability of fiber provides some solutions to this network design. With fiber, it is possible to move the workgroup switches from the intermediate closets to the main equipment room, thus giving each user a dedicated private backbone to the feature-rich core environment. Using the switch as the backbone reduces network blocking and provides more bandwidth for applications requiring high quality-of-service such as Voice over IP and streaming video. Substantial space savings can be realized by eliminating or reducing the number of communications closets. Centralizing switches also makes it possible to nearly eliminate wasted switches. Collapsed-backbone networks can simplify network design and management while giving users acces to greater bandwidth and quality of service. The serviceability of a collapsed network is also greater, since an equipment failure can be addressed simply by moving a few patch cords from one piece of equipment to the next.
The architecture developed for Network + Interop 2003 takes advantage of this concept by locating the entire network on a small collection of racks. The backbone consists of more than 10 Extreme Black Diamond switches, each having between 96 and 160 ports. These switches are connected redundantly with Volition fiber-optic patch cords that effectively serve as the network backbone. 3M offers Volition fiber patch cables compatible with Extreme Networks switches as well as virtually every other type of networking equipment.
Horne said the switch to Voliton cabling on the show floor substantially reduced the overall installation time. "It takes only a very short period of time to train someone to produce clean connections in a couple o fminutes with Volition fiber cabling," he said. "This is critical, because for the show, I suddenly have a staff of 50 volunteer contractors whose skill levels can range from 1 to 10. But they all can be very easily trained to work with the VF-45 connectors. For example, while it's easy to cross over the pairs with other fiber systems, that possibility doesn't even exist with Volition. Voliton also uses a color-coded key system for patch panels that makes it very difficult to install a patch cord in the wrong place. Volition fiber played a key role in the success of the eNet in 2003, particularly by making it practical to provide Gigagit fiber connectivity to the desktop throughout the exhibit area for the first time."