Exploring the Internet
The organizing principle for the network was a series of ribs. Each rib ran through a physical area, such as an aisle in the convention center or the Diamond Pavilion. Each rib had an Ethernet based on unshielded twisted pair and a 16-Mbps token ring. Each of the 25 ribs had a 19-inch equipment rack at the end with the electronics to drive the subnets and routers to be connected to the backbones.
Two different backbones connected the 50 subnets, one based on FDDI, the other on Ethernet. A T1 line connected the Diamond Pavilion to the Convention Center. A microwave link went to two terminal clusters nearby in the Fairmont Hotel. Yet another T1 link linked the show network to the NASA-Ames Research Center, which in turn provided links to the Bay Area Research Network and out to the NSFNET backbone.
This entire network was put in by a semifanatical team of volunteers, overseen by two INTEROP staff members frantically trying to keep some sense of order. The challenge to this network is that you don't get convention centers a month ahead of time to put in your network. In fact, as we met Saturday afternoon, they were still tearing down the booths from the previous week's Seybold Publishing Conference.
At midnight, the Convention Center would be turned over to the Interop Company. At 8 A.M., just eight hours later, dozens of 18-wheel tractor trailers would roll onto the convention floor to start setting up the vendor exhibits. By that time, all the cable needed to be off the floor: try telling a teamster on a forklift to take the long way around because he might crush the fiber.
Between midnight and 8 A.M., 35 miles of cable had to be rolled out and hung from the ceiling with cherry pickers. Equipment racks had to be moved safely into place, and equipment for the Network Operations Center (NOC) had to be moved up into the control booth overlooking the convention floor.
To make this all happen, a core team of a half-dozen volunteers met with Interop all year to plan the network. In July, the company got the convention center for a day and hosted a cable laying party. All the cable was laid out and connectors added. Then, the cables were tied together and carefully rolled onto drums and moved into
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