Conference Venue Needs Onsite Wireless Plus Live Streaming for Remote Guests

JAMI is Japan’s only academic group specializing in medical informatics. The group promotes academic research and conducts activities that are directly linked to practice in the medical field. JAMI also presides over multiple research associations and pursues numerous research activities.

Over five days in November 2020, JAMI held the 40th Joint Conference on Medical Informatics at Hamamatsu ACT CITY. Symposiums, tutorials, workshops, lectures, corporate exhibitions, and more were held in 11 event halls. The conference included both onsite visitors and live streaming to enable online participation for remote guests and allow guests to feel safe about the risks of Covid-19. This was the first time the conference had used a live streaming system. This was a new and complex networking need for the event.

Allied Telesis had worked with JAMI before. In 2018 Allied Telesis provided a cuttingedge large venue network for the 22nd JAMI symposium, featuring their world-first hybrid Channel Blanket wireless solution. Now in 2020 they were set to enable the new hybrid conference with advanced networking technology.

Autonomous Wave Control: the Ideal Solution

Allied Telesis installed a large amount of equipment for the conference network, including 35 switches, four firewalls, and 46 wireless Access Points (APs). The conference venue was roughly divided into three zones: the Hamamatsu ACT CITY Congress Center, the Exhibition and Event Hall, and the Seminar and Exchange Center. Each zone needed its own dedicated equipment plus access back to the main server room in order to send live stream data.

In the server room the network core was built with x530L Series switches, stacked into a virtual chassis using VCStack™ for a fully resilient solution. AR4050S UTM Firewalls provided high-speed Internet connectivity for smooth live streaming of conference sessions. Downstream from the network core, x230, GS950, and GS980M Series edge switches provided network access in all three zones and used Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+) to connect and power the TQ5403 APs—simplifying wireless deployment.

Autonomous Wave Control (AWC) ensured that the TQ5403 APs provided consistent and high-performing wireless access right across the conference venue. AWC is an innovative technology that regularly analyzes wireless traffic patterns and then automatically optimizes AP settings to reduce radio interference and minimize coverage gaps. This self-tuning wireless network delivers significant improvements in Wi-Fi connectivity and throughput for a superior user experience.

Seamless Live Streams and Smooth Wireless

During the conference, medical workers from university and public hospitals, private-practice doctors, pharmacists, and many other businesses visited or participated in the conference via the streamed sessions. The hybrid nature of the conference enabled the best of both worlds with a dynamic environment for onsite visitors, and the extended reach and capacity supported by live streaming—all while keeping people safe in today’s Covid environment.

The 40th Joint Conference on Medical Informatics ended successfully on November 22, 2020, with no network issues reported throughout. Allied Telesis had designed and implemented a stellar wireless LAN environment using AWC for visitors and participating companies and groups, which automatically reconfigured and optimized APs as demand dictated. This was matched with wired network connectivity at exhibition booths and a dedicated and high-performing event live streaming solution.  

The entire network was easy to monitor and manage using Vista Manager EX, reducing the time and effort required for administration and making the conference a smooth-running experience for the IT team.

Allied Telesis looks forward to a continued relationship with JAMI, providing powerful and flexible networks for future conferences and events.

In dynamic wireless environments like this, AWC truly excels. Many visitors and guests bring multiple mobile devices to conference venues. With traditional wireless networks, even with comprehensive planning, radio interference can cause unforeseen connection failures and delays. AWC exhibits tremendous capability in these situations—no planning is necessary because AWC autonomously creates and maintains optimal settings to ensure a seamless and robust wireless LAN environment.

The Allied Telesis Vista Manager™ EX network management and monitoring tool provided a single-pane-of-glass view of the entire wired and AWC wireless network. This reduced the conference’s infrastructure complexity and costs and enabled easy visual monitoring of the entire solution over its duration. Vista Manager’s AWC floor mapping feature also allowed easy visual control and monitoring of the wireless APs, allowing IT staff to manage the venue’s network in real time.