Bandwidth Management for the largest Exhibition Centre in UAE

Background

This case study describes the use of Inventum Internet Gateway in a large independent or stand-alone exhibition centre. The primary objective of using the gateway device was to provide and manage exhibitor, visitor & staff Internet Access services.

Quick facts:

·         12 halls which offer event organizers inter-connected and flat-roofed floor space of 73,000sqm

·         19 ‘Capital Suite’ meeting rooms that can host between 20 to 200 delegates

·         Conference Halls with a capacity of up to 1,000 guests 

·         Network access required for exhibitors, event visitors (e.g. conferences, banquets, special events) and staff

·         Leased circuits for exhibitors & Wi-Fi for visitors were the primary means of connectivity

·         Internet Connectivity of up to 1Gbps

Key Requirements

1.      Authenticate, control and track every Internet session

2.      Securely provide Hi-Speed Internet Access for Exhibitors, Visitors & Staff

3.      Four forms of Internet services were required:

a.       Paid Service to Exhibitors – hourly, daily, weekly

b.      Free Internet to select Visitors

c.       Sponsored Wi-Fi by Exhibitors for Conference and Events – Using shared codes 

d.      Leased Circuits to Exhibitors (10-100 Mbps)

4.      Personalized Internet Services

5.      Prioritize VIP user traffic

6.      Firewall protection and filter unwanted websites (as may be mandated by law)

7.      Lawful tracking of user sessions for various law enforcement agencies

The Solution

Inventum proposed its L1 Gateway (formerly known as MSG 3200) as the ideal solution to address all the requirements drafted by the exhibition centre. The gateway was installed in the central data center of the exhibition centre.

The various solution components are discussed below:

 

                        Diagrammatic Representation of Customer Deployment

 

Authentication & Control

The exhibition center wanted the ability to offer various services to its visitors, exhibitors and staff without configuring any network element. A single box in the network was required that would allow creating subscribers, policies and billing through an intuitive user interface.

Every exhibitor required a different kind of service with varying SLA/network quality levels. Also, unlike visitor authentication over web page, every exhibitor would bring their own network equipment that would need to be authenticated at a layer 2 level since the network equipment could be anything from routers to set top boxes with no user interfaces.

The Inventum gateway was configured to authenticate visitors via a web page which provides access through a sign-up process. Access to exhibitors was provided by means of the operations engineers creating an “account” in the gateway device with the policies based on the plan selected by the exhibitor for the required duration. Staff authentication was done via a web authentication page available only over a hidden and secured SSID connected on a different VLAN.

Secure Network

Since exhibitors, visitors and staff would be using the same network, it was ensured that the transmissions were kept secure while sharing the same network infrastructure. Most Wi-Fi access points provide the ability to simultaneously allow both “open” & “secure” wireless channels called SSIDs. The SSID name is what end users see on their computers when attempting to connect to the Wi-Fi access point.

Exhibition centre can enable two SSIDs:

1.      Open SSID for visitors

2.      Secure SSID for staff

Each SSID’s traffic was segregated into different virtual networks each technically called a VLAN. The VLAN ensures that while the network may be physically the same, logically the users & their traffic are completely separated with guaranteed security.

The traffic handling for each category of customer was also done differently. For example, an exhibitor may sign up for 10Mbps to 100Mbps plan, and hence needs to be routed out via dedicated PPPoE links. The QoS required by the exhibitors may be on a sharing basis (Contention Ratio) or dedicated and are hence charged accordingly.

The visitors would vary during each exhibition and hence traffic for the visitor’s flows via a pool of PPPoE links configured in load balancing. Each PPPoE link has uplink capacity of 100Mbps.

Similarly, the staff users would be routed via a 10Mbps dedicated leased circuit provided by the national carrier.

ISP Internet Link

The Internet line was provided by national carrier and provides the pipe to the Internet.

The Internet line was plugged into the one of the ports on the Internet gateway & the exhibition centre’s local network inter-connecting the Wi-Fi AP was also plugged into the gateway. The Internet gateway thus became the transit point for all traffic traversing to & from the Internet.

For redundancy & load balancing, the Internet gateway allows more than one ISP link to be used by the centre. Having 2 links makes the service more reliable and also allows centre to send premium visitor traffic through a more premium link.

Internet Service Plans

The business centre sells Internet PIN cards created from the gateway device with many different plans to suit any requirements. Following are some sample plans.

1 Hour Plan

            Service Type  : Hi Speed Internet

Validity           : Must use in single go & expires after 1 hour

            Speed              : 2 Mbps

            Price               : $W

24 hour Plan

            Service Type  : Hi Speed Internet

            Validity           : Use anytime during 24 hours from first use

            Speed              : 2 Mbps

            Price               : $X

Weekly Plan

Service Type  : Hi Speed Internet

            Validity           : Use anytime during 7 days from first use

            Speed              : 2 Mbps

            Price               : $Y

Each card carries a unique code which will be used by the exhibitors or visitors to access the Internet. These cards could be paid, free or sponsored by the exhibitors and provided free to visitors of the exhibition. Alternatively, the venue owner can create a common conference password to authenticate and allow Internet access to all the participants.

Personalized Services

The gateway device allowed the exhibition centre to provide personalized services to each exhibitor by providing customized login pages specific to the requirements of each exhibitor. The exhibition centre would also provide customized/branded PIN cards to exhibitors to allow them to achieve the desired results from their media campaign.

The gateway device allows the exhibition centre to provide premium bandwidth to the exhibitors or VIP guests while the free users contend for a best effort service. This allows the venue owner to fairly distribute bandwidth based upon user, location or type of service without making any changes in their existing network infrastructure.

The fair bandwidth distribution feature is important as some visitors may usurp bandwidth from other guests if they start heavy downloads.

Comply with the Law

In the interest of national security, many governments have made it mandatory for all publically accessible Internet services to keep logs of all websites and applications visited by their users. Often venue owners running such services are also required to comply with this requirement.

Inventum’s gateway device provides a comprehensive logging & search feature that allows venue owner to comply with lawful requirements.

Block Objectionable or Illegal Content

Exhibition centre may wish to filter out objectionable content from being available over their Internet system. The gateway allows the venue owner to selectively block content by:

·         Specific websites

·         Specific URL (e.g. a specific video on YouTube)

·         Specific categories of content (e.g. Adult, Violence)

·         Specific networks

Load Balancing

With plenty of Internet bandwidth providers and thousand’s of concurrent Internet users, the exhibition centre was desirous of achieving the maximum uptime with load balancing capabilities on Internet uplinks. The Inventum Internet Gateway conformed to 6 PPPoE load balance links for ~ 60 Mb throughputs along with;

·         Dual redundant, hot swappable power supply

·         Redundant internal storage

·         Capability of running second gateway in HA mode.

Works with all Devices

The proposed solution supports all Wi-Fi enabled devices such as smartphone’s, laptops, tablets & iPads.

Conclusion

The solution proposed & implemented in the exhibition centre goes beyond the simple requirements & also delivers key differentiators:

1.      Authenticate, monitor & control users and bandwidth without making any changes in their existing network components

2.      Ability to do premium services – service differentiation is important in the hospitality industry

3.      Support virtually any Internet device – guests can access internet on all supported devices

4.      Customized Services – guarantees each exhibitor a truly personalized experience

5.      Maximum uptime using load balance facility with capability of running the second gateway device in HA mode.