Unpredictability and unpreparedness for anything that goes on in their environment is every IT managers’ worst enemy, and nothing reeks of unpredictability more than a guest network in the enterprise.So one could imagine the insurmountable task an IT manager would be faced with when it came time to set up the largest ‘guest network’ in the history of the Olympics.
But, this was apparently not so for Avaya, the official network equipment supplier of the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, that officially ends this weekend.
Avaya’s Chief Networking Architect, Paul Unbehagen described, “Calling it a guest network is a tongue-in-cheek joke. It’s the world’s first Olympics, where wireless service is given away for free. We are not charging anybody in the Olympic family for wireless access.”
That’s usually a recipe for disaster, inviting any and all types of devices and applications onto the network.
Unbehagen explained, “There’s typically not a lot of security when one sets up a BYOD (bring your own device) environment. And in this environment, we won’t be able to train anybody who is coming in, or control the software on their devices; it’s not like an enterprise where devices and policies are issued.
“Everyone is showing up, between the ages of 12 to 70. And we provide the network for the Olympic family- the committee, the volunteers, the participants, the end devices like timers and more. We have no idea who’s coming in, what’s coming in and what they are going to do with it.
“It’s the worst case scenario.”
The private network that connects everything together required 50,000 Ethernet ports, 2,500 access points, with support for as many as 40,000 people and 150,000 devices hooked on at any one time.
Everyone is showing up, between the ages of 12 to 70. It’s the worst case scenario.
Paul Unbehagen
It’s aptly described as the world’s largest ‘guest’ BYOD network, and where the previous Vancouver Games had a network to handle 4Tbps traffic, the Sochi Games’ network was built to handle 54Tbps.
Olympic-grade set up
Never mind that Sochi is a completely greenfield environment with basic utility infrastructure still a work in progress at the time of deployment. Avaya’s network also had to be able to support 30 IPTV channels streamed to high-definition televisions spread across the Games’ venues.
Unbehagen said, “We have seven secure virtual networks at the Games that users have to log in to use. We have seven private networks running and we have to keep them secure from each other.
“What’s different about these networks from all other Olympic networks before, is that there are new capabilities. For one, we secure people not based on their device, but based on who they are and what they do.
“It’s one protocol running everything. We are able to run it more efficiently and with far less people. Plus we are doing more on it than we ever did at previous Olympics.”
Unbehagen claimed that almost everything at the Sochi Games has an IP address as an anti-terrorism measure, even trash cans.
“These will be in their own private routing virtual environment,” he said, managing to give the impression the Sochi Games is almost a self-contained ‘Internet of Everything’ scenario, as well.
“There’s a benefit of leapfrog in innovation that we are able to do with our Fabric Connect solutions,” he opined.
Fabric Connect
Avaya’s solution at Sochi uses Avaya Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA) at its core and leverages SPB-based Avaya VENA Fabric Connect solutions that earns Sochi 2014 the title of being the first Fabric-enabled Olympic Games.
With this solution, network complexity is reduced and Unbehagen shared it took a total of less than 30 days, with only two to three network engineers, to deploy the Fabric Connect implementation and configure the environment.
He concluded, “When you look at Avaya’s deployment at the Olympics, it’s a good example of how to design an environment that meets modern day requirements.”
