Computing and Networking Facilities

A meeting room at the Hotel Glória was set up as a terminal room. The large plenary room was equiped with professional audio and video gear.

For terminal room and videoconference support there were two Digital Alpha 2000's acting as servers, an SGI Indy took a feed from the A/V crew and transmitted the plenary session on the MBONE, and a Sun workstation acting as an MBONE router.

For public use, the terminal room had ten Digital VT terminals connected to a Digital terminal server, eight Digital PCs running Windows 3.11 and TCP/IP software, one Macintosh with TCP/IP software, two Sun workstation, four IBM RS-6000 workstation, three X terminals, and four laser printers. In addition network hookups were available for portable Macintosh and PC computers. All computers could connect with each other, the printers and the Internet. UNIX accounts were established for all attendees so that they could receive electronic mail directly and have local computing. The terminal room was open from 7 AM to midnight daily and was heavily used.

Networking facilities and support for CHEP 95 was provided cooperatively by LAFEX/CBPF and Fermilab with assistance from the Energy Sciences Network and the HEP Network Resource Center . EMBRATEL established two 256-Kbps microwave links to the Hotel Glória. One link went to CBPF. All in-country traffic was routed over this link. The other link went to EMBRATEL's satellite facility that sent the link over satellite to MCI in the US. MCI then routed the link to Fermilab. All international traffic took this path. As a backup, international traffic could also be sent through the CBPF-Glória link and then to the US via a heavily-loaded 256-Kbps satellite link with CERFnet in California.

At the Hotel Glória, a Bay Networks router and 10-Base-T hub provided two subnets. One subnet was used to connect the terminal rooms, meeting rooms and exhibit space with each other and the Internet. The other subnet was used for MBONE videoconferencing and linked the plenary room with the terminal room and the Internet. A Sun workstation in the terminal room acted as an MBONE router with a unicast tunnel from Fermilab. An SGI Indy in the plenary room provided MBONE broadcasts of all plenary sessions from a feed of audio and video from the crew videotaping the proceedings. The SGI was also able to make MBONE broadcasts from other sites available in the plenary room by sending audio to the house speakers and video to a PC running X windows with its screen output sent to a large-screen projector.

Sponsor-Provided Equipment