Network Testbed Emulab.net

gseidman writes: "Have you ever needed to simulate a network? Tired of old ns? Do you just hate dealing with hardware in general? Take a peek at Utah's Emulab.Net. They have over 300 PCs, some StrongARM devices, roughly 5 miles of cabling, a huge and expensive switch, and great software for setting up a virtual LAN. They also have a gallery showing the machine room in various stages of completion (did I mention five miles of cabling?)."

Comments

5 Miles of sloppy cabling...

[GLX]

I don't know what brainchild designed the layout of those switches, but the fact that they went for the RJ-48 blades versus the Telco (RJ21X) blades in those switches shows sloppy planning. What if one of the blades in the middle goes out? They have to unplug 48 Cat-5 cables versus unscrewing 4 telco harmonicas and leaving the 48 ports untouched on a patch panel

If you're going to put forth that kind of effort and money, why not do it right the first time?

Re:5 miles, big deal.

[mac.newbold]

I was one of the few 'lucky' people who had to run it, and no, we didn't run it thorough a 2ft high crawl space. It is even worse than that.

In case you couldn't tell from the pics, this is all in self contained racks. The large majority of the wiring is in 9 standard-sized racks, or about 7ft tall * 3ft deep * 2 ft wide * 9 racks = 378 cubic feet for about 5 miles (25,000 ft) of cable plus all the PCs and switches.
As a generous estimate, that leaves 100 cubic feet for cables and ventilation. That says the every cubic foot of open space is filled with an average of 250 linear feet.

Needless to say, it was not fun.

Mac