In the late 1990s, I worked with an amazing group of brilliant network engineers building the InteropNet for the Interop trade shows around the world. We were always pushing the envelope, introducing next-generation technology before it was really ready. During a number of those years, we delivered real-time video traffic over the network, often using multicast methods that are still not widely used. We were always a little ahead of our time.

Before I explain the details, allow me to mention one concept that is critical to understanding everything about the Internet: all transmissions across the Internet are made by packets. This means that every file or stream across the Internet is chopped into little 1400-byte chunks, each of which traverses the network independently of all the others. There is literally no relationship between the packets on the network. They are only reunited at the receiving end after they are off the network and in the device that will interpret them and deliver the result (like a video playback, email, file transfer, or any other end-to-end application).

But over the network, those packets are 100% independent of each other.

Because they are independent, they are subject to all kinds of issues. Sometimes, packets are dropped because a device is overloaded. Since packets can take different paths, they can arrive out of order or with varying time between them (called “jitter”). For many types of data transfer (like email, files, and even instant messaging), most of these things don’t matter at all.

However, some traffic is very sensitive. Especially audio and video that is time-sensitive (used for applications like video calls, audio calls, live broadcast).

Back to Interop and the InteropNet… Delivery of video, even over the high-speed networks we were using, meant having to recognize the different requirements of traffic types and using the network resources in ways that accommodated those requirements. During those years, the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force, the volunteer organization responsible for the standards that allow the Internet to function) defined the Differential Services (diffserv) standards to provide network performance appropriate to the type of service required.

This is an essential concept! Networks must be able to differentiate all of those independent packets flying around the network.

The New York Times has been reporting on both the FCC comments about so-called “Net Neutrality” conversations and the rumored Google/Verizon agreement on network usage. The typical idiotic political conversation has ensued, of course.

The entire idea of “an open Internet” is foolish at best and dishonest political posturing at worse. In this situation, it’s actually both. Besides, “Net Neutrality” is not possible! Not only that, it’s not even desirable.

Bandwidth costs money. Equipment costs money. More bandwidth costs more. Differentiated services also cost more. We all want them to be offered by the providers so that we can have live video, reliable voice-over-IP, and additional services that we haven’t even imagined, yet.

The conversation, then isn’t about “neutrality,” but rather about universal access to differentiated services… at an appropriate cost that will be determined by the market if we just allow it to do so. After all, nobody wins by denying access, and in a free market, those who do will lose business.

There is one group who benefits: the idiot politicians who want control.

The entire focus is wrong. Typical of the politicians playing at being engineers. It just doesn’t work.

Update: The Wall Street Journal ran a bit more detail on the Google/Verizon agreement today. The comments from the so-called “Free Internet” speakers are very telling: they don’t understand how the Internet actually works.

Although I managed to touch base with a few of the InteropLabs folks in Las Vegas the week before Interop, I was with a client elsewhere the week of the show (and had been in the French Alps during Hot Stage), so I missed it this year.

What about you?

So, I ran off to Tampa for a couple of days to attend a meeting that had been planned before we knew that we would be doing NY. I grabbed an early-morning flight back, and got back here about lunch time Sunday. There were more of the usual suspects here, of course, since most of the team arrived while I was away. It’s great to have chelliott back, and the core team reached critical mass.

Of course, as usual, the warehouse T1 is struggling under the load of so many downloads. Although we remain unsure exactly what’s being downloaded (ha!), the strain has led to some interesting solutions. At the Spring Hot Stage, you may remember that Jim used RDC to dig into a PC at his house in order to download using his bandwidth (considerably better than the warehouse). Yesterday, taking a hint, chelliott headed over to Jim’s house to download Cisco Clean Access and other related stuff. He started in the driveway, but by the time he finished he had helped himself into the house and met Greg coming home while sitting in the living room.

Ah, the Interop NOC team…

Come tomorrow, we’ll have the vendor engineers here, and we’re actually ready for them!

Quote of the day: “This stuff is still way harder than you think it should be.” (Karen regarding 802.1X, et. al. that they are working on for the Cisco NAC demo.

The warehouse suddenly filled up this afternoon. Well, filled-up is a misnomer, since there really aren’t very many folks here. But, compared to yesterday, it’s more full. Chris and Kevin showed up today, and we have most of the NAC environment re-created from Vegas. We have a bit of configuration to do on the switches to get the network routing, but we got new versions of Longhorn and Vista installing, all of the devices and systems out, and mostly ready to go.

How did that happen?

Fundamental question: is there a “bleeding edge” any more? Is there technology that can cut enough to make you bleed? If so, what is it?

Well, we didn’t feel it here, but there was a little rumbler a bit northeast of here: USGS Earthquake Hazards Program » Event 40187964.

The warehouse is eerie. Quiet. No one here but Chee and me. Minimal equipment. Our racks seem more full than any others. And, of course, I’ve stolen a number of servers from the OSS rack to populate ours for additional servers required this time around.

It was also interesting to discover that the Labs core actually does some stuff. So, since Chris and his racks aren’t here, we didn’t have a fiber/copper termination point for the labs. Not a big deal, but just an example of how focus creates those “Huh?” moments. I hadn’t even thought about the fiber connection requirements here in a while.

Tomorrow, the team begins to arrive. At this point, the rack is lit, a few extra servers are there, and there’s a new Summit 24 acting as a fancy media converter. We’ll be sharing space with NOC 2, and have a lounge area next to the Labs area. Perhaps it will help us draw additional folks.

Anyone coming to NY?

I find myself wondering what this Hot Stage will be like. Only one InteropLab (NAC). There’s been quite a segregation between InteropNet (formerly eNet) and InteropLabs (formerly iLabs) since I was re-introduced to the team following the “great black listing of 1999,” So I am very interested in seeing how the smaller teams will allow us to connect better.

I’ll arrive midday tomorrow and try to get everything completely ready for the team. We’ve got three largely autonomous teams within the NAC lab, each with responsibility for a single version of NAC (TCG’s TNC, Cisco’s NAC, Microsoft’s NAP). While independent, the approaches are analogous and intended to help attendees understand similarities and differences–and to touch technologies that might not be completely available elsewhere.

More after I’ve arrived and settled in…

…here it comes! We’ll be back in Belmont as the only Lab for NY. I don’t have any idea who all will be there, or how it’s all going to work. It’s feeling pretty weird at this point, with most of the Labs folks sitting at home grateful that they don’t have to jump on a plane and head to Belmont.

I’ll be arriving there on the 2nd, the rest of the team on the 3rd. Most of us will be there for a week, putting together the Las Vegas demos, upgrading where appropriate, getting rid of demo rot, etc. We have a couple of changes in the team, since crw’s not sure if he’ll be able to make NY (he’s at part of Hot Stage, anyway), and Brett can’t make it. Kevin is going to take on NAP as the lead, and Karen is taking on C NAC.

I’ll post more as we get closer and get on-site…

What a weird experience. Everything here–even the InteropNet (formerly eNet) folks–is quite calm. No emergencies. No one going crazy (except for Jim, but we’ll get back to that later). Just stuff happening at a pretty leisurely pace.

We got here yesterday to start setting up the Labs. My flight was delayed, so Jan and Joel did the vast majority of the work. Once again they have me wondering what my value is in the equation, but I’ll do what I can… We had power, tables (the tops had to be redone), and gear. Joel came up with the idea of zip-tying the power stips just under the table tops, so we don’t have to fish around for power on the floor. That gives us a bunch of extra room for storage under the tables, too (our tables are three counters wide, giving us a center (empty storage) and two sides (non-empties and other needed stuff).

The NAP stuff rotted in the crates, so Carig and Kevin are wrestling with it. Last I heard, they were blowing away the changes that an unnamed vendor made earlier today by restoring a backup from Hot Stage. It doesn’t help that Microsoft decided that they couldn’t afford to have any of their NAP engineers here. It’s only a third of our demonstration…

Meanwhile, at InteropLabs CORE, Stradtman is doing an excellent job following in the footsteps of TEFKAS (the engineer formerly known as Swanson, for those of you who have forgotten), by hanging off a 15′ ladder by his toenails while stringing cables into the green room. Of course, I was the one standing on a chair to help. No, it wasn’t a wheeled chair, Chris. He did give the safety speech, though. In fact, as I type this, he did step up onto a wheeled chair. I made him get off and use a non-wheeled chair. I have to stop to make sure he doesn’t get stupid, again…

This is one of those days that I feel like I’m not helping enough. Everyone was going crazy today, with Craig trying to corral Vista and Longhorn (we finally learned that Vista is definitely the client, and Longhorn Server has not got a release name, yet, so it’s still Longhorn). The difference explains how what we were installing the past few days never worked. It helps to have a Microsofty in the crew to get this working.

They got a lot done today, but then managed to blow something up when they started working with the Aruba gear. I’m not exactly sure what they did, but the deer-in-the-headlights look from Craig was priceless.

Brett managed to get a lot of work done today as a result of teaming with the LANDesk guy. They banged through a bunch of the Cisco documentation and managed to get pieces of it working–even when the documentation was wrong.

Joel’s been busy pointing out all of his articles in the Network World magazines in the break area, especially his huge article about Network Access Control that just came out today. It’s pretty good, despite the author. (I wonder if Joel will ever read this… probably not!)

Anyway, we’re pretty beat. It’s time to head home. Errr… To the hotel, I mean.

I forgot to mention this in the earlier post for the day, but one of the fun things about coming to the Hot Stage event is always trying to figure out what’s going on with the Internet connectivity. This year, amazingly, we had connectivity when we got here. The 45 net was actually coming into the warehouse. The subnets were assigned and routed.

But, going to http://www.google.com/ gets redirected to http://www.google.co.jp/! I assume because the show was last there, and somehow someway Google has been convinced that our addresses are there.

I am beginning to think about how the exhibitors and attendees will enjoy being redirected to Google’s Japan site (not that many people at the show are likely to use Google). I suggested that we might want to change that prior to departure from Hot Stage. But, we’ll see…