Behind-The-Scenes Superbowl Tech

884 APs by zn0k · 2011-02-02 12:09 · Score: 3, Informative

There are 884 APs, not 84 as the summary claims.

84 APs would be pitiful. Cisco recommends no more than 35 users per AP radio. You can probably push that up to 50 for public access WiFi, maybe - if you're thin stretched - a little bit more as long as many clients are 5GHz devices. Given that many APs will be back of the house and not accessible to the public you wouldn't be able to serve more than one to two thousand users on 84.

Re:884 APs by Riceballsan · 2011-02-02 12:46 · Score: 1

Honestly 84 would most likely be enough for the superbowl, sure there are thousands of people there. But probably less then 1,000 of them 1. are geeky enough to want to be on their laptops at the superbowl. 2. Think it's a good idea to even bring a laptop into a heavily crowded chaotic area filled with screaming crazy people holding beverages, and who knows how many thieves wanting to take advantage of the situation. Sure smart phone usage is way up, but considering most all of them have a data plan anyway it still seems a little overkill to me, I'd imagine 2,000 reporters commentators etc needing the internet access. But I can't really fathom why more then 5% of hardcore football fans would be using wifi during the superbowl
Re:884 APs by zn0k · 2011-02-02 12:59 · Score: 1

If you read the article, "ATT WiFi is everywhere in the building". That is referring to ATT augmenting their 3G network via WiFi. All their WiFi enabled smart phones look for an SSID named attwifi. The layer three gateway of that network triggers the phones to submit their phone number to that gateway, which looks it up in the ATT subscriber database and grants access if you have a data contract with them. That alone will account for many, many thousands of users. Doing that is significantly cheaper for ATT than bringing in a huge number of additional cell sites (which they have to do, anyway, to augment their voice network) and provide a lot of bandwidth to the sites to allow for increased data usage. You can cram a lot of phone calls into not a lot of bandwidth, but if the NFL is running interactive apps on smart phones as outlined in the article it's a lot cheaper to use the existing WiFi network than to temporarily augment the physical infrastructure beyond what is required for increased voice usage.
Add to that the media areas where the press will be using laptops and smart phones, as well as all the VIPs running around demanding network connectivity in some form.
During the game usage possibly won't be all that high. But the hours before and after where there's still plenty of people in the stadium (more than just a few thousand) there'll be quite a lot of users.
Sure, that is just an opinion, but - I know, fallacy of defective induction - I have provided public WiFi at some rather large events, including recent ones. The trend in data usage is clearly going up, and sharply so. The number of clients is increasing fast, and clients are consuming more and more data.
Re:884 APs by camperdave · 2011-02-02 13:15 · Score: 2

Laptop? It's 2011 dude. Cell phones are WiFi capable these days. People will be watching the game on their phones while they stand in line for food, or are sitting in the bathroom stalls getting rid of the food.

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:884 APs by Qubit · 2011-02-02 13:22 · Score: 1

All their WiFi enabled smart phones look for an SSID named attwifi. The layer three gateway of that network triggers the phones to submit their phone number to that gateway, which looks it up in the ATT subscriber database and grants access if you have a data contract with them.
Wait, so if I just set my SSID to "attwifi" and mess around with some no-op challenge/response stuff when phones connect, I can pretend to be an official AP for AT&T cell phones? I sure hope all of the data flowing over that network is encrypted...

--

coding is life /* the rest is */
Re:884 APs by zn0k · 2011-02-02 13:45 · Score: 1

Don't know how hard it is to become a gateway. But it's distributed via unencrypted, public WiFi. The SSID is active at any Starbucks - go to one for a half hour and play with a packet sniffer.
Re:884 APs by Anonymous Coward · 2011-02-02 14:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

Gee, I bet it will be very exciting to see which group of overpaid multimillionaire jocks will win a game that doesn't fucking matter! I'm on the edge of my seat really.

God damn. If only the scientists and doctors who improve our quality of life and bring new meaning to our existence got half this much attention. What a fucking waste. If space aliens exist and they find us, they might be obligated to sterilize this planet in case our madness and our pathological priorities are contagious.

This is what sanity would look like: after all the poor are fed, clothed and sheltered, after all disease is eradicated, after all tyrants are ousted from power ... then and only then does it make sense to put our excess resources towards worrying about which group of overpaid athletes can most efficiently chase a football. We are far from sanity, folks. We don't have time for it. We're too busy worrying about money, power, money, power, wealth, coercion, money, power, MONEY AND GODDAMNED POWER that's all we care about and have time for. The jocks and their fans, the jock-sniffers, well they made a huge market out of something that doesn't fucking amount to anything, and that's what matters.

Ever wonder why state and municipal governments will spend millions of dollars to build and maintain stadiums? Bread-and-circus, or at least that's what the Romans called it...
Re:884 APs by KingMotley · 2011-02-02 16:43 · Score: 1

Probably not. But if you really want to watch me reading slashdot by sniffing the network, go right ahead. All the important stuff is done over SSL.
Re:884 APs by adolf · 2011-02-02 17:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

Er, uh. I'm not much of a football fan -- at all -- but all I can think is this:
They're at the Superbowl. The fucking SUPERBOWL. Have they nothing more important to do than fuck with their iPhones, wait in huge lines for bad and expensive food, and then wait in huger lines to recycle the food, while wasting similarly huge amounts of time shuffling to and from their designated seat?
Couldn't they just eat and shit before they show up at the stadium, so they might actually be able to ... you know ... watch the game that they paid/traveled to see?
No?
Then I guess it's truly an American sport after all*.
*: Yep. And I'm an American, always have been, always will be.

--
Kid-proof tablet..
Re:884 APs by Skater · 2011-02-03 01:13 · Score: 1

I think you're underestimating smart phone saturation. My wife and I go to hockey games at Verizon Center in DC, and we both have iPhones (and yes I am aware of the irony of using an AT&T phone in a place named "Verizon Center"). Before this season, the 3G network was basically unusable between the periods, and not very good the rest of the time. This year, the arena installed free Wifi for attendees, and that, while cool, is still pretty limited - we usually can't connect to either network they set up for fans (when we can, it's great, but it fails probably 3/4 of the time). The 3G is now better than it was, but it's still pretty limited; my wife had dropped back to the Edge network when we were there Tuesday. So, I'm curious how well the network at Cowboys Stadium does - Verizon holds 18,000 for hockey games; Cowboys Stadium has 80,000.
Re:884 APs by Skater · 2011-02-03 01:16 · Score: 1

In my experience, you might go for food/restroom breaks ONCE throughout the 3.5-4 hours you're there. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. And usually you do it during one of the breaks in the game. Last game I was at that's exactly what happened - at halftime, we went to the restroom and grabbed some food. The rest of the time we were in our seats watching the game.
Re:884 APs by zn0k · 2011-02-03 02:42 · Score: 1

I find it doubtful there would be such a number that would make sense as a generic rule. First of all, stadiums have thick walls made from cement. Wireless signals don't penetrate at all. You can have two APs next to each other within 10th but separated by a wall and they can't see each other at all. Secondly, the 5GHz spectrum is finally picking up, and with the extra available channels it's good to use more APs at lower power. When you're not cranking up the transit power as high as you can (usually a fairly bad idea in big crowds) you can of course fit more radios in.

Mixed Units... by cmseagle · 2011-02-02 12:10 · Score: 2

8 million feet = 1,515 miles, in case anyone was wondering.

Re:Mixed Units... by mooingyak · 2011-02-02 12:12 · Score: 5, Funny

8 million feet = somewhere between 4-8 million people.

--
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Re:Mixed Units... by ocdscouter · 2011-02-02 12:29 · Score: 1

8 million feet = somewhere between 4-8 million people.
In terms of height or intestinal length?
Re:Mixed Units... by gnapster · 2011-02-02 12:37 · Score: 1

In terms of counting their toes and dividing by ten.
Re:Mixed Units... by treeves · 2011-02-02 14:29 · Score: 2

"...somewhere between 4-8 million..."
Based on the numbers here: http://www.amputee-coalition.org/fact_sheets/amp_stats_cause.html
I'd estimate that the figure would be *much* closer to 4 million than to 8 million.
In fact, you could have said "between 4 million and 4,020,100". (4 million * 200/199)

--
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Re:Mixed Units... by PNutts · 2011-02-02 14:32 · Score: 1

In terms of counting their toes and dividing by ten.
And then round up to the next whole number.
Re:Mixed Units... by mooingyak · 2011-02-03 00:26 · Score: 1

I wanted to safely account for unreported amputees. Though considering the possibility of a swarm of unreported double amputees I should probably have played it safe and just said at least 4 million. Unless you think dogs are people too. In which case I should have said at least 2 million.

--
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.

Hey, look! by msauve · 2011-02-02 12:11 · Score: 5, Funny

A Cisco ad!

--
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law

Re:Hey, look! by zn0k · 2011-02-02 13:05 · Score: 2

That's not entirely fair, either. You don't have 884 stand alone APs deployed, you have them centrally controlled either via an appliance (Cisco's WLC/WCS) or via cloud based controllers hosted on the APs themselves.
Sure, there's a lot more than Cisco out there, but most gear than can handle balancing power and channel assignments to counter interference for that large a wireless network is a heck of a lot more expensive than a cheap, off the shelf AP. And there are few non-brand manufacturers out there than can handle a deployment that large, though there's a heck of a lot more brands than Cisco.

884 access points, not 84 by Ed+Peepers · 2011-02-02 12:12 · Score: 1

From TFA

Also, they have their own 5,000 sq ft data center in the stadium. Pretty cool, but I think I'll still wait until the game's over so I can watch the commercials online in one go!

Re:884 access points, not 84 by commodore64_love · 2011-02-02 12:20 · Score: 1

That's the only reason I watch the Super Bowl. Although lately the ads haven't been too great. We don't get the cool "Bud. Weis. Er" ads of the past.

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:884 access points, not 84 by Obfuscant · 2011-02-02 12:24 · Score: 1

We don't get the cool "Bud. Weis. Er" ads of the past.
"Doctor, this patient has money coming out the wazoo..."
Re:884 access points, not 84 by gnapster · 2011-02-02 13:26 · Score: 1

5,000 square feet of data center and only 100TB of storage? Those hard drives must feel like they are princesses!
Re:884 access points, not 84 by Aldenissin · 2011-02-02 15:02 · Score: 1

What could they need 100 TB of storage for?

--
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Re:884 access points, not 84 by gnapster · 2011-02-02 16:09 · Score: 1

Most of the data is probably video. They have a gazillion cameras, recording in HD and 3D, and they may well need to store it raw/uncompressed, compressed, before and after editing. I do not have any intuition about how much space one game's video might take up, but they probably have seasons-worth of footage stored there, probably from thousands of games where commentators might refer during play. Someone else in another thread was talking about the Cleveland Indians being able to recall statistics and video of the pitcher's previous games, to be viewed in the dugout by upcoming batters, which would mean that there is a plethora of metadata attached to these files. I would have no doubt that football managers would have access to similar information.
The article also said that the data equipment is consolidated from other Cowboys data centers around Dallas, so who knows what data was migrated with that equipment.
Re:884 access points, not 84 by PopeRatzo · 2011-02-02 16:56 · Score: 2

Pretty cool, but I think I'll still wait until the game's over so I can watch the commercials online in one go!
It'll be more entertaining to watch you act them out for us at the water cooler on Monday.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:884 access points, not 84 by Captain+Hook · 2011-02-03 02:38 · Score: 1

There is also the possibility that it's not just game footage being written there, the security cameras watching the crowd must need storing as well.

--
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.

A single network? by DoofusOfDeath · 2011-02-02 12:14 · Score: 1

A single network you say?

Am I the only one seeing an unexpected sacking by the angry geeks?

Re:A single network? by zn0k · 2011-02-02 12:18 · Score: 1

Sadly most people assume that if something shares physical infrastructure, it must be on the same network. I guess that's why it's IT world, not Network World.
Re:A single network? by dave562 · 2011-02-02 12:18 · Score: 1

Isn't that convenient. Guest wireless access on the same network as the POS terminals and EVERYTHING else. I'm all for VLAN segregation and ACLs, but come on now? How hard is it to isolate the network that handles transactions from the network that the fans are using to update Facebook?
I am going to give these guys the benefit of the doubt and assume that the reporter is just an idiot. There is no way that everything is on the same network. That would be security stupidity. I can imagine it now, "No you silly switch, THIS is what your ARP table is supposed to look like."
Re:A single network? by afidel · 2011-02-02 12:57 · Score: 1

Why not? Amazon and others handle millions of secure credit card transactions over the open internet every day, why should a shared physical infrastructure be inherently less secure?

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:A single network? by mug+funky · 2011-02-02 13:56 · Score: 2

remember what management get paid...
Re:A single network? by Archangel+Michael · 2011-02-02 19:11 · Score: 2

Same network, not the same network.It depends on how you define "network".
40,000 ports, PLUS 884 Access points each capable of 20-50 connections each all on the same configurable network infrastructure = one network. OR you can look at collision(broadcast) domains and understand that 40,000 connections alone would be impossible, and realize that they use VLANS and other routing protocols to segment the collision domains logically (routing, security, public, private, command/control etc).
I understood what the article meant by "one" network. It meant the former, not the latter.
The average joe, walking around the stadium with their Droid or iPhone and not once drop a connection would consider it "one network", the same way they view AT&T Cell service is "one network". They don't give a shit about VLANS, Collision Domains, Routing protocols, Switches and Network Gear. Really, they don't. It is "one network" to them, and THAT is the way it is supposed to be.
And we can geek out behind the scenes with all the blinky shiny geek toys.

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.

No cheerleaders? by schwit1 · 2011-02-02 12:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

This weekend's Super Bowl clash between the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers will be the first in the game's 45 year history sans cheerleaders.

Re:No cheerleaders? by Bratmon · 2011-02-02 14:01 · Score: 3, Funny

You know nobody will click an outbound link to that website.
Re:No cheerleaders? by mallyn · 2011-02-02 15:54 · Score: 1

Not all. Some will look for guys with minimal clothes. Or other will look for these clothes

--
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
Re:No cheerleaders? by PopeRatzo · 2011-02-02 17:00 · Score: 1

I don't know what made me click that link. I seldom do so if I don't recognize the domain. But thanks, friend. I really enjoyed it. Things like that give me hope for mankind.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:No cheerleaders? by Kilrah_il · 2011-02-02 18:32 · Score: 1

And nothing of value was lost.

--
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
Re:No cheerleaders? by SanityInAnarchy · 2011-02-02 18:56 · Score: 1

I did, out of morbid curiosity, and I learned something I didn't know: When Fox isn't trying to push an agenda, they're downright boring.

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Re:No cheerleaders? by lupinstel · 2011-02-03 02:38 · Score: 1

Oh noes!! The cheer will be all over the place without any leadership.

--
Don't blame me, I voted for Cthulhu.
Re:No cheerleaders? by dean.collins · 2011-02-03 03:24 · Score: 1

only 6 teams dont have cheerleaders....and 2 make the superbowl. Does that say something about work ethic of these two teams? i dont know you make that call. - http://www.livefootballchat.com/
Re:No cheerleaders? by slaad · 2011-02-03 05:25 · Score: 1

According to NFL Films president Steve Sabol, it is the first since Super Bowl II.

--

~Warning!~ The above is encrypted using rot676!

The storage is cool by afidel · 2011-02-02 12:33 · Score: 3, Informative

One thing I found interesting is that the Cleveland Indians are a big user of storage. When the player is in the hole (second next to bat) they can bring up any and every pitch they have ever received from the current pitcher and likely relievers. That means the metadata has to be fast enough to find the pitches and then the streaming media server has to be able to serve it up basically instantly if they want to view a couple of different at bats in the time they are in the hole, pretty cool IMHO.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.

Re:The storage is cool by swb · 2011-02-02 13:01 · Score: 2

There was an article in the NY Times about Major League Baseball doing this for EVERY CAMERA ANGLE for EVERY PLAY, with full metadata for everything happening, including what crazy shit people write on signs.
Apparently it was all in queryable database so that you could find out, say, what happened when Batter X faced Pitcher Y on Team Z in Stadium 2.
Re:The storage is cool by afidel · 2011-02-02 13:12 · Score: 2

Yeah, found the article, it's interesting that they talk about the pitch thing like it's a future possibility, talking to the guys from the Indians they were already doing it in production this year.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Re:The storage is cool by fishbowl · 2011-02-02 13:13 · Score: 2

I have a friend who runs the booth equipment that does titles on sports events, with the NFL games being the biggest gig.
The thing that strikes me about it is how low-tech the process really is. The stats data is available for pretty much the entire history of the league, and they can pull up whatever they want, but beyond that it's really simple, a director says what they want in the headset and the operator looks it up, and it gets displayed in whatever format was defined in the couple of hours they have to set up before the game. It's a required skill for the operators to be able to anticipate what's going to be requested, and mistakes just plain don't happen, if you want to ever sit in that chair again.
It really is pretty cool to watch, but it's also very obvious that it's a stressful job, the bosses are uniformly complete a-holes, and it's such a specialized skillset that it doesn't translate to *any* other profession.

--
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Re:The storage is cool by afidel · 2011-02-03 02:56 · Score: 1

Not sure, I was at a lunch and learn with a VAR and happened to be sitting with some of their IT guys and they were telling me about how much high performance storage they had and I was kind of blown away since you don't think of a sports franchise having big data needs and then they explained what it was for and I though it was very cool.

--
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.

But does it run GNU/Linux? by Statecraftsman · 2011-02-02 12:41 · Score: 1

All those miles of cat6, fiber, and aps are great but tell us more about the software! The only software mention in TFA was mobile apps. Me so sad.

It's all good stuff by demonlapin · 2011-02-02 12:47 · Score: 2

A friend of mine from high school was a sociology major at Tulane. However, he did work in the computer labs as his work-study job. Senior year rolls around, and the Super Bowl comes to New Orleans. The NFL asked the Tulane computer labs for a few student assistants who they could hire to help out. He ends up impressing the guys enough that they offer him a job doing some basic IT work for them - at NFL headquarters in Manhattan.

He ended up parlaying that into a job with the WHO, and then moved to Geneva, where he's been ever since. Probably the most successful sociology grad they've had in a long time.

Re:You lost me at... by hvm2hvm · 2011-02-02 12:49 · Score: 1

So... you have that and a half in a rack? Why the extra operation? Btw, how many racks? Why the extra division into racks?

--
ics

NFL database tech by TheCodeFoundry · 2011-02-02 12:51 · Score: 2

I, for one, would love to see the UI that the techs use to run the queries on obscure NFL statistics during games.

"This is only the second time 3 consecutive 3rd down conversions have occurred between 11-3 rated AFC teams in outdoor stadiums with 2nd string quarterbacks using a QB option play"

And they are able to run these queries quickly...usually within the time of the next play. How do they do that? Is it raw TSQL styled queries or do they have some kind of UI for that?

Re:NFL database tech by Metrathon · 2011-02-02 14:06 · Score: 1

I have wondered about that too. The way I would do it would be to have a number of canned queries that become relevant as the game progresses, each able to flag itself if something "unusual" should occur. Surely they are able to query on the spot but there has to be a somewhat large pool of "interesting" things preprogrammed - just waiting to happen.
Re:NFL database tech by drinkypoo · 2011-02-03 00:04 · Score: 1

I'll bet you money that the system just spits out stats like that for the benefit of the announcers. I'm sure they have one or more people doing realtime reporting as well. If the database is put together worth a damn then the queries won't even take long.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:NFL database tech by FrankWhite_KingOfNJ · 2011-02-03 01:42 · Score: 1

I have no doubt in my mind that there are staticians conjuring up stats for the announcers to talk about. My question is, do they have specific staticians that they work with? Like a good producer or something like that. Like do they announcers just use the local stadiums guy, or do they bring in there man that they know can kick out the craziest stats?
Re:NFL database tech by li99sh79 · 2011-02-03 02:03 · Score: 1

I'm fairly certain they bring their own statistician; every now and then when they're giving shout-outs to the production team they mention "our statistician"

--
I was just here, where did I go?
Re:NFL database tech by Enigma23 · 2011-02-04 00:51 · Score: 1

I, for one, would love to see the UI that the techs use to run the queries on obscure NFL statistics during games.
"This is only the second time 3 consecutive 3rd down conversions have occurred between 11-3 rated AFC teams in outdoor stadiums with 2nd string quarterbacks using a QB option play"
And they are able to run these queries quickly...usually within the time of the next play. How do they do that? Is it raw TSQL styled queries or do they have some kind of UI for that?
That or they've got John Madden chained up in a cage out of camera shot...

--
Ceci n'est pas une .sig

IPv4 + football by ben_kelley · 2011-02-02 12:54 · Score: 2

the stadium has thousands more TVs, each with its own IP address

The truth is out: Football is driving the IPv4 address space exhaustion!

Power Sucker. by mistapotta · 2011-02-02 12:57 · Score: 1

The Super Bowl will take as much power as a medium sized town. Good news for those Texas doctor's offices and schools who got power outages of 2-3 hours. Clearly we're not as important as JerryWorld.

Re:Power Sucker. by Mashiki · 2011-02-02 13:07 · Score: 1

Well I think the answer is simple. Texas should simply cut back on selling power to California as needed. Maybe then they'll get around to building a nuke plant or two.

--
Om, nomnomnom...
Re:Power Sucker. by artor3 · 2011-02-02 13:17 · Score: 1

Yeah, won't somebody think of all those poor schoolchildren sitting in the dark. At 5 PM. On a Sunday.
Re:Power Sucker. by mistapotta · 2011-02-02 15:14 · Score: 1

Nobody thought about those poor children at 10 AM. On a Wednesday. Because their cameras were all at the Media Day. Or whatever NFL was doing at the JerryDome today

100 TB is impressive how? by sdguero · 2011-02-02 13:02 · Score: 1

2TB drives are $100
$100 x 50 = $5,000 worth of storage. $10k if you include the cost of the file servers. Not very impressive.

My friend just put together a 8TB NAS for ~$1000...

Re:100 TB is impressive how? by fishbowl · 2011-02-02 13:14 · Score: 1

How long does it take from start to finish to write a terabyte of uncompressed digital video?
If you need to improve that dimension, the price goes up steeply.

--
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by bongey · 2011-02-02 13:21 · Score: 1

Yes cheap off the shelf drives are $100, but what if you want real enterprise level drives . 10k RPM 600GB SAS drive is 600 bucks, no $100.
Car analogy:
My friend bought a car , a Toyota Carola and it only cost him 10k, it is just as good as your Ford Mustang Shelby Cobra.
See your broken logic.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by YrWrstNtmr · 2011-02-02 13:28 · Score: 1

My friend just put together a 8TB NAS for ~$1000...

That's great, Sparky. Now host 100,000 people, several thousand journalists, multiple channels of live Hidef video, and 100 million people expecting you to not fuck up.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by sdguero · 2011-02-02 13:32 · Score: 1

True. I'm not an expert in how the HD cameras transfer the data to the storage but I'd imagine its done somewhat cheaply with COTS equipment. Streaming raw HD video is heavy duty but I'd be surprised if those cameras don't put it in a much more efficient format.

1080p H.264 only needs a 20mbit pipe to stream right?
I think a decent RAID card and gigabit NICs should be able to handle several of those streams at once...
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by fotbr · 2011-02-02 13:33 · Score: 1

In all fairness, if the intended use is merely to get from point a to point b in accordance with all appropriate motor vehicle laws, then you can make the case that either is sufficient.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by sdguero · 2011-02-02 14:05 · Score: 2

That was my thought. If the NIC is the limiting factor (likely if you are streaming video) then there is no need for faster, hotter, less efficient hard drives (which is very similar to the Cobra vs Camry comparison:).

Of course, people like to have the bad ass hardware, myself included, and it is hard to ask for a six figure salary when you are managing $10k worth of equipment...
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by sdguero · 2011-02-02 14:07 · Score: 1

I love it when you call me Sparky. :)
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by bongey · 2011-02-02 14:55 · Score: 1

Don't think that is even true. I can take the my mustang and follow all motor vehicle laws and get from point a to b faster than you in your Toyota. (seek time==acceleration), especially in traffic.
Now another weird thing that is off topic a bit, for some reason when I drive my mustang, people get out of my way, but for some reason when I drive my little 4 door saturn. Everyone seems to cut me off , get in my way , attempt to race me when I pass them, it is like I have kick me sign on the back of my car, but in the mustang, people literally get out of my way. My wife has been in both cars and witness this phenomena, she likes to ride in the mustang just because people aren't dicks for some reason.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by kevorkian · 2011-02-02 17:31 · Score: 1

Say the cobra does 0-60 in 5 seconds .. and the camry does it in 15 .. thats 10 seconds that you are traveling faster .. then you are moving the same speed.
60 mph == 1 mile per min. 10 seconds == 1/6 of a mile ..
even if this was instant .. you would gain 1/6th of a mile at the start .. and thats it.
Perhaps some at the end where the stang can outbreak the camry .. Or perhaps around the off ramp where it will handle better.
There would be no advantage in traffic , as your speed is controlled by the car in front of you .. all the camary has to do is acc as fast as the car in front of them. And the stang cant acc any faster then the car in front.
I have owned many cars in my liffe , including a 02 cobra ( only kept it for 6 months .. bought it from a widow after her husband became a hood ornament during a bike crash and she had no idea what it was .. oh that was a fun six months .. and profitable also :-D ) and the only time I have experienced the phenomena you describe is when I drove a Crown Vic .. This is in the NYC metro area .. where are you that folks are scared of a mustang ??
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by bongey · 2011-02-02 17:55 · Score: 1

Don't think they are scared of mustang, but it seems respectable car. I don't know how many times I have gone to pass someone in the saturn and the speed up. It is like "oh no , I am not going to let a saturn pass me". In the mustang they never even try, unless maybe if it is a camaro or something else, but in the saturn everyone doesn't want you to pass them, it is really annoying.
I also said I won't break any laws, but you might lose your lunch. I also average about 26k miles a year of driving a year,mostly highway so I get to see all kinds of drivers.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by kevorkian · 2011-02-02 19:00 · Score: 1

Ok .. makes sense about the lack of respect for a Saturn .. My point of reference being a crown vic , which folks got out of the way for. Likely thinking I was a cop or something.
Also .. not really trying to argue .. but driving hard enough to make someone loose there lunch would likely violate most states catch all "reckless driving" laws.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by SanityInAnarchy · 2011-02-02 19:07 · Score: 1

Huge data-centers don't screw around with that consumer grade crap.
So Google's data centers are small? From what I understand, they use 5400 and 7200 RPM drives, and with the amount of storage and redundancy they're working with, I can't see why they'd bother with anything enterprisey for the drives themselves.
Granted, for this application, you'd want faster drives, but this is a special case. Just how much does it take to stream raw HD video to disk? Even so, you'd expect the article to mention why the storage is impressive, and just having 100 TB of it... isn't, until we also find out what the throughput is.

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by bongey · 2011-02-02 20:24 · Score: 1

No arguing. Just explaining. You would be surprised how many maneuvers are legal, but most people would think they are illegal. Nothing illegal about driving down the street backwards, e-brake u-turns are another, which requires a little skill to not look "reckless" , just a little break in u-turn can save you the extry 2 points in the in the 3-point turn.
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by zero0ne · 2011-02-02 21:27 · Score: 1

So you think HDDs spend more time reading a constant stream of data (driving at a specific speed) vs seeking out that data?
What happens to your results if the drive(r) is spending more time seeking (accelerating) than reading data (going a constant speed).
Re:100 TB is impressive how? by guruevi · 2011-02-03 05:22 · Score: 1

You really think they're streaming over 100Mbit/s? Most likely the camera's are connected with at least a gigabit connection for the low res and FibreChannel, 10GbE or some proprietary link for the rest and there are a LOT of camera's. To stream random input like that at a 2K uncompressed already exceeds 1 Gbps per stream and then you have the database, statistics crunching, parity or mirroring overhead, disk failures and repairs etc. etc. Your 50 SATA hard drives are not going to pull that. Even if you're simply doing RAID10 you're looking at 100 drives but to get the IOPS and the throughput to pull this you're looking at 300GB 15K drives (at least 1000 of them to get to a well-maintained 100TB SAN), SSD's (not the cheap ones, think $10-100/GB), RAM-based SSD's (think $1000-5,000/GB), caches, spares.

--
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com

Re:What's the super bowl? by ThePeices · 2011-02-02 13:10 · Score: 1

Yes, we get it, you are not American. But the majority of Slashdot readers are, you can tell by the assumptions in most Slashdot article summaries, and the extensive use of Imperial units in said summaries.

Im not an American and live on the other side of the world from them, and even I know what the Superbowl is. The fact I ( and presumably you) have no interest in American Football whatsoever is completely irrelevant ( body armour, padding and helmets are for girls, real men play Rugby )

If you truly don't know ( yeah right ), then use Google to find out.

Disappointed by camperdave · 2011-02-02 13:25 · Score: 1

I wanted to see some of the tech they use on the field, specifically the "flying" camera, the scrimmage line painter, and the 3D stuff.

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!

Re:Disappointed by kent_eh · 2011-02-02 14:54 · Score: 1

I wanted to see some of the tech they use on the field, specifically the "flying" camera, the scrimmage line painter, and the 3D stuff.
That stuff doesn't belong to the stadium, it's in the TV network's truck. Like the guy in the video said "the TV networks have their own equipment in trucks downstairs"

--

---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Re:Disappointed by phantomfive · 2011-02-02 17:48 · Score: 1

he scrimmage line painter,
Fascinating, yes, but that was last year.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."

How much does all the DHS/Echelon stuff cost? by Seumas · 2011-02-02 13:42 · Score: 1

I'd like to see numbers on the cost of all the "spot the terrorist" cameras and facial identification and over-head blimp/uav monitoring stuff the DHS/FBI/whatever does at this event.

Re:How much does all the DHS/Echelon stuff cost? by bobstreo · 2011-02-02 14:30 · Score: 1

Actually cisco sells that too. Check their physical security products.

Re:American Rugby by Seumas · 2011-02-02 13:45 · Score: 1

There *is*. We call it religion.

It's Super Bowl, not Superbowl by DavidinAla · 2011-02-02 14:28 · Score: 1

There's no such thing as a "Superbowl." It's two words. Super Bowl.

Re:It's Super Bowl, not Superbowl by cashman73 · 2011-02-02 15:16 · Score: 1

Since you're not an authorized sponsor of the NFL, that would be, "Big Game" . . .

Re:You lost me at... by PNutts · 2011-02-02 14:37 · Score: 1

100 TB of storage — all on a single network.

Color me completely unimpressed. I have half of that sitting in a third of a rack myself.

I have almost a tenth of that at my house.

Not Brand New by Wyatt+Earp · 2011-02-02 15:28 · Score: 2

It was opened in May of 2009, has had two full pre-seasons and regular seasons of Football, concerts, boxing matches, the NBA All Star Game already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboys_Stadium#Major_events

Re:I'm American and I don't care either by mallyn · 2011-02-02 15:56 · Score: 1

Sports to me is riding a bike to work. Watching sports is what I don't do because I am too busy sewing, welding, doing lapidary, glass engraving, and playing with LED's and electricity.

--
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington

Re:What's the super bowl? by PopeRatzo · 2011-02-02 17:02 · Score: 1

What's the super bowl and why should I care?

As an American, and a football fan, I can honestly say there is no reason for you to care.

I stopped caring after the NFC championship game when the Bears broke my heart. Again.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.

Re:I'm American and I don't care either by PopeRatzo · 2011-02-02 17:07 · Score: 1

Watching sports is what I don't do because I am too busy sewing, welding...

Wait, those LED clothes and water bottle holders made out of spoons are yours? The striped silk outfit?

Friend, you're brilliant! Let me know if you ever come through Chicago, and I'll gladly buy you a drink.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.

Re:What's the super bowl? by Kilrah_il · 2011-02-02 18:39 · Score: 1

Or, it is fun. You know, a thing you do with no tangible benefit, just for... yeah, fun! I, in general, don't like sports (i.e. watching sports). I come from Israel where people go gaga over soccer; I can't stand that game. 90 minutes of boredom. Basketball I mainly watch when an Israeli teams plays on the Euroleague, but that's it.
The only sport I do enjoy watching is (American) Football. After you learn the basic rules, you find out it is an interesting game with lots of teamwork, something that cannot be said on most other sports. So, yes, I am going to sit at home at 2AM and watch the game on Monday (Sunday in the US).
But don't let me stop your trolling. You were saying?

--
Whenever in an argument, remember this.

Re:Hacked in 3..2..1..0 by Archangel+Michael · 2011-02-02 18:46 · Score: 1

do not click that link. Troll bait

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.

Re:Oh look by SanityInAnarchy · 2011-02-02 19:01 · Score: 1

Given freedom, yes, some people abuse it.

I don't see how that could possibly be relevant. Would you rather not be free? In this case, would you rather be forced to sit zombified in front of a TV?

I can certainly agree that there's no particular reason anyone else should care about football, but I really don't see your point.

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

They managed to screw this up?!?!? by mcrbids · 2011-02-02 19:27 · Score: 1

So here you have the largest stadium network, and they put business information on the same network as the unwashed public?

I've configured numerous networks involving business data and customer access, and I'uine *never* put them on the same network - that's just stupid and invites the bored hacker to penetrate your network and disable and/or sniff the network for juicy details.

--
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.

Re:What's the super bowl? by chargersfan420 · 2011-02-02 19:43 · Score: 1

It's that Cutler guy. He's killing you.

And sadly that trade was the Bears' Herschel Walker trade. The so called last piece of the puzzle.

This is interesting how? by LostMyBeaver · 2011-02-02 20:06 · Score: 1

Out of all the stats we saw, there's just nothing that's really impressive. A building that large with that much cabling sounds pretty average. The number of ports really isn't all that amazing either. These days, cash registers with credit card terminals all use ports. I'd imagine there are 10 ports used just for the registers at each hot dog or beer stand. Cameras probably are transmitting losslessly either over a box that I make using JPEG2000 over 1Gb or a box from Cisco that does no compression over 10Gbe (based on the latency, that's more likely, we struggle to get below 500ms on that stretch). So they're using ports as well. Frankly, none of what I saw was even moderately complicated.

The wireless tech, well, let's just say that with 15 channels and 50,000-100,000 people sharing the 15 channels in a small space, let's assume only 1/4 of them actually use the wireless access for the application. That's still more than 1500 people sharing a single frequency channel. Of course, some people might be able to use the 5Ghz range, but it's 1%.. maybe. So, since unmanaged 802.11 technologies use a simple time sharing mechanism to share bandwidth and most phones don't support managed tech, so it must be assumed, then there's 1500 people stomping each other pretty hard. Imagine 1500 people sharing 54Mbps, that's an average of 36Kbps per user. Of course since G will degrade and collisions will be constant, expect closer to 9Kbps if there's connection at all. It doesn't matter how many access points you install, there are only so much bandwidth which can be communicated on. The only way to make more access points better than fewer would be to isolate sections of the stadium in large scale faraday cages... and I'm assuming those will get in the way of the game. Though it might be possible to make something like a stripes through the stadium so that channels reuse is far enough away from each other that there can be some level of channel reuse without having to synchronize with other networks on the same channel. 4G and LTE would be much better technologies for this purpose, but it would be hard to accomplish on this scale. It would require users to "switch carriers" or data networks to move over. It's not likely to happen though. Maybe an agreement can be made with the major carriers to install additional POPs within the stadium which would serve the traffic and provide access to sites hosted in the stadium free to the users.

The video technology isn't really impressive. It's just more is more. If you build a new stadium, whether you install 50 screens or 500 screens makes little difference. The video switching technology is a little interesting, but frankly, most of that is manageable using switching equipment which has been readily available for 5 or more years. It's just not rocket science.

Shrinking the X number of shitty old servers down to X/5 modern servers is pretty pathetic. It sounds like CDW really wanted to sell more VMWare licenses than necessary. The machines they replaced probably were on average 1/10th as fast and the new ones and 1/4 utilized on average. That means they installed twice the processing capability to handle a task that probably only needed 1/4 the CPU power to begin with. Ok, they have room to grow, but let's be realistic about this, installing 1/4 the machines in a chasis which can accept additional blades when they need more power would have been much smarter. But compared to the cost of the fiber cabling, the servers and the power to run them for 10 years didn't mean shit anyway, so who cares.

Wow, 70 wiring cabinets. Really? You mean that there are 70 places in a frigging stadium large enough to play a football game as well as a second stadium within it and another game going to converge the 40,000 points to connect cash registers, wireless access points, smoke detectors etc together. Snore... oh... sorry, yeh impressive.. really impressive.

As for integration of systems like inventory management and the PDA carried by the poor kid working ther

Coward? by BigHungryGiant · 2011-02-03 02:21 · Score: 1

What's this about cowardice? Ok, All sorted. I'd still like to know more...

http://www.LiveFootballChat.com by dean.collins · 2011-02-03 03:23 · Score: 1

Seeing Cisco is advertising can i post my ad as well :) I've been working with a friend for the last year part time on a series of websites one of which is http://www.livefootballchat.com/ We're trying to get more traction so if you could sign in with your facebook account now that would be great. Basically it's a live chat site for the NFL football games where you can chat live with your facebook friends +post updates to your wall +post to twitter +email friends +buddylist + badges etc. The CHurl for the Super Bowl is http://www.livefootballchat.com/CHurl/02-03-2011/10173/5014 if you want to join us from 6pm on.

Re:What's the super bowl? by PopeRatzo · 2011-02-03 12:05 · Score: 1

It's that Cutler guy. He's killing you.

Not at all. Cutler's a very good QB. I'm willing to bet that Cutler will either equal or better Aaron "Erin" Rogers' super bowl ring totals, when all is said and done. I was in attendance a few days after Thanksgiving when Cutler completely stole the show from the flavor of the day, Michael Vick.

I can be very harsh on soft Bears players, but Cutler is not soft at all. If the Bears can add one decent O-line player and one big wide-out, he'll be a top-tier NFL QB and make a lot of naysayers eat their words. The story yesterday in the Sun-Times shed a lot of light on what happened to Cutler in the NFC championship game. Apparently, he tore his knee in the first play in the second quarter, continued to play out the half, took a pain shot at half time and still came out to play in the 2nd half. That doesn't sound like a quitter to me, and explains why his play fell apart early in the game. The guy took a beating for sixteen games, with an O-line that couldn't block anyone or protect him. He was concussed so badly in the Giants game that he walked off to the wrong sideline, and still went back out to play after lying about his injury to the trainer. It may not have been a smart move, but his heart cannot be questioned.

Next year, your Chargers come to Soldier Field for the last home game of the regular season (assuming they actually play any football next year). It'll be interesting to see if either of our teams are playing for anything by that point.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.

Re:Oh look by SanityInAnarchy · 2011-02-03 12:34 · Score: 1

And my point is, if you choose to put yourself on "a form of dopamine addiction" by choice, that's far better than being prevented from doing so by force. Of course, better by far than either of these would be to actually go play some sports.

That many Americans don't seem to use their freedom for anything useful doesn't make them less free, it just makes them dumber.

--
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!

Re:What's the super bowl? by chargersfan420 · 2011-02-08 05:43 · Score: 1

That's a fair opinion. You caught me foaming at the mouth again. Cutler has put up some good stat lines so far, but somehow IMHO I just don't think he would be all that good if it wasn't for a guy like Mike Shanahan or Mike Martz leading the offense. But I suppose time will tell.

I sure hope there is football next year, and we both have something to play for by then. The Cutler - Rivers rivalry has been quiet since he left Denver, maybe they'll do some jibberjabbering for old times' sake...

Slashdot Mirror

Behind-The-Scenes Superbowl Tech

104 of 154 comments (clear)