Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies

Technical Requirements for the APRICOT Summit Network

APRICOT Summit network infrastructure has fairly straight forward infrastructure needs. Most importantly, APRICOT runs an open and high speed network recognising that delegates need to carry on with their day job reliably and without impediment while they are attending APRICOT.

Venue Requirements

The APRICOT venue is normally a large conference hotel able to handle the space requirements of an 800 delegate event in three parallel sessions over 4 days.

The APRICOT venue must permit APRICOT to deliver its own network infrastructure via two separate Internet Service Providers. These links are commonly delivered over fibre optic links to the demarcation point in the venue. The venue must faciliate the connection of these links and the equipment used so that APRICOT can provision its own fixed and wireless network infrastructure for streaming, on-line participation, and delegate Internet access.

It is not ever feasible for APRICOT to use a hotel's guest Internet access. Hotels never have sufficient wireless density in the convention space, never have sufficient bandwidth from their service provider, and have unnecessarily restrictive access to accommodate room guest needs. APRICOT is the region's premier Internet operations conference and all delegates have high expectations of the quality of the Internet access provision.

Wireless Network Infrastructure

The wireless network infrastructure is provisioned, where possible, through the entire conference venue for the duration of the workshop and conference days of APRICOT. The wireless network equipment is provided by a sponsor or the local organising partner. Requirements:

There are two wireless networks provisioned at APRICOT:

Physical Wired Network Infrastructure - Workshop Week

During the workshop week, each workshop room requires an ethernet drop. The ethernet drop in each workshop room is provisioned like this:

The workshop rooms themselves do not require any conference provisioned WiFi as the workshop instructors provide this via their own equipment. However it is necessary to provision an access point or two in the general areas outside the workshop rooms to ensure that delegates have wireless Internet access available when the workshops are not running.

Physical Wired Network Infrastructure - Conference Week

During conference week, each of the three conference halls requires an ethernet drop for the conference webcast. This ethernet drop is provisioned like this:

The conference wireless network needs to deployed the day after the workshops conclude, to provide coverage for side meetings that take place prior to the conference week commencing, and to assist the Secretariat setting up the registration counter and the infrastructure teams setting up the venue rooms.

The conference Registration Counter requires fixed wired ethernet drop on its own subnet and at minimum an 8-port ethernet switch so that staff computers and registration printers have fixed network access independent of the conference wireless.

The conference Secretariat requires fixed wired ethernet drop on its own subnet and at minimum an 16-port ethernet switch so that staff computers and Secretariat printers have fixed network access independent of the conference wireless.

Network Core

The network core needs to be fully redundant, with the provisioning of dual Layer-3 switches. These Layer-3 switches can be provided by a sponsor or by the local host. The Layer-3 switches need to support:

It is expected that the switches will operate as two independent cores with half the connections on one switch, and half on the other. In the unlikely event of a switch failure, the physical connectivity for devices connected to the failed switch would be moved over to the other operational switch. There isn't any requirement for redundant connectivity out to the edge.

Network Operations

A network operations LAN needs to be provisioned to host any NMS and other network operations systems deemed necessary for the conference network. This might include, at a minimum:

These devices are normally provisioned on separate VMs on a host appliance, for example, an Intel NUC. Better to have two for redundancy.

It is useful to have a large screen near the registration counter to display current network monitoring statistics from the above network operations infrastructure.

Conference Border Network

APRICOT connectivity uses two independent network operators, and therefore two border routers are provisioned. The two border routers will normally be supplied by a sponsor or by the local host. These two border routers each will connect to the two core ethernet switches supporting the conference core infrastructure.

The requirements of the border routers are as follows:

Conference Upstream Connectivity

APRICOT requires redundant Internet access from two independent network operators with independent fibre connectivity out of the venue to their closest Point of Presence. These network operators are the connectivity sponsors for APRICOT.

The requirements for the upstream providers are as follows:

If it is possible to also connect the APRICOT conference network to the local Internet Exchange Point, that'd be a very welcome extra.

The conference network operators need to announce the APRICOT address blocks from the APRICOT AS number several weeks in advance of the conference, and ensure that all filters are updated, and that the reachability of the address space is truly global. The conference network operators, along with APRICOT, need to ensure and verify that the geolocation of the conference address blocks actually points to the host economy.

Conference Address Plan

The standard address plan used for the APRICOT network is documented below.

Specific addressing details:

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Page last updated on Friday, 30-Jun-2023 14:41:58 AEST.

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