We sent a crew halfway around the globe
to Jönköping, Sweden.
Why would we do that, you might ask?
To take a look at the world's fastest internet connection,
a whopping 1.6 terabits per second at DreamHack 2018.
To put that kind of speed into context,
that is fast enough that everyone in St. John's, Newfoundland
could stream high-definition video at the same time
and to download PUBG at that full speed
would take only 1 16th of a second.
They set this up in part to make sure
that the over 6,000 people connected to their network
have a great gaming experience,
but also because, of course, Mondo bragging rights.
So let's have a look at the gear and setup involved
and give a big shout out to ComHem
for sponsoring this video.
So how do you get
1.6 terabits per second?
You might think that you'd need a massive honking cable
like the size of my face
with all of the internet getting crammed through it,
but in reality, it's way smaller and way smarter.
This tiny yellow cable right here
is responsible for the whole shebang.
It's just a regular, everyday fiber cable,
but within it, there are eight different wavelengths of light
each capable of
200 gigabit per second.
When the cable enters the transmission system here,
it is split off using a combination of passive,
i.e. mirrors and lenses,
and active signal manipulation
to split the different wavelengths apart
into more conventional signals.
These signals are carried through this larger wire,
which contains 16 fibers,
and then they're split apart into individual fibers here.
From there,
the signal undergoes another splitting
and is turned into 100 gig purple fibers
that then leave the transmission system
supplied by the ISP ComHem
and go over to DreamHack's routers.
In here, the signal is mirrored to allow monitoring,
and then it gets sent off
to one of the 23 distribution switches around the floor.
Now, up until now, the signal has been completely fiber,
but it has to be turned into a regular old copper connection,
for the final 20 feet or so.
So that happens here.
One gigabit is sent to each of the 260 access switches,
where individual gamers will plug in their computers
and receive 100 megabit internet.
That is, unless they're baller
and shelled out for the premium package.
In that case, their switch will get a 10 gig uplink,
and they will get provisioned
a full one gigabit connection just for them.
Finally, those huge PUBG updates,
can be downloaded quickly.
So, this is all well and good so far.
Fast internet, who wouldn't want that?
But where it really gets crazy
is in the department of redundancy department.
Each distribution switch
has two physical connections to the routers,
so someone could actually trip over one of the cables
without anyone losing their internet connection.
At most, they drop a packet or two.
And if the DreamHack router
that is going to all the switches fails,
the game is over.
And the game continues.
See?
No.
See the two routers on the ends here?
They are completely identical.
Blow either one of them up,
and the game shall continue.
And it doesn't even stop there.
That 1.6 terabit wire.
It first travels to a data center in Yon-Shaping,
where it gets split into two 800 gig fibers
that separately travel to Stockholm.
So, if you cut one of those wires,
you get 1.6 terabit,
because those data centers are also connected together.
So, you would have to literally blow one of them up
to drop this to a piddly 800 gigabit.
But of course, all of those things could go wrong,
or someone could just cut the main cable here.
Do it.
Do it. I dare you.
And even if that happened,
just 45 milliseconds later,
the routers will have failed over,
to the four 10 gig fiber cables,
which also take two different routes
to the main data center in Stockholm,
making it basically impossible
to fully take the internet away from this LAN party.
All right, so now we've got internet into all the switches,
but every single one of the routers and switches
needs to be configured.
And at this scale,
manually configurating each switch would take an eternity.
And even things you wouldn't normally think about,
like running out of IP addresses become big issues.
So to address this,
oh, I'm sorry.
All of the switches are dynamically configured
via an automated deployment system based on DHCP,
TFTP and Python,
so that it's basically plug and play.
They're also using a monitoring software called Prometheus.
So if a switch goes down,
they don't just know that one has stopped working,
they also know it's physical location in the building.
They also know it's physical location in the building.
And they're using a front end called Grafana
that creates graphs for tracking things like
total hours played in each game,
what domains are used the most,
and the total network usage at any moment.
So we figured out how they solved the problem
of getting internet to the 6,000 or so participants.
But every computer, monitor and RGB strip
has to be powered as well.
And all of those combined draw a massive one megawatt
or one megawatt.
A million watts of power.
And the fancy stages that showcase the best gamers
and musical performances,
well, they gobble up another megawatt.
So some pretty serious gear has to be deployed
to make sure that someone with a 7980XE or a Threadripper
doesn't hit Cinebench and make the whole place go dark.
So three 10 kilovolt lines come in
and get transformed down to 400 volts and about 1,500 amps.
Then they enter this room right here
or one of the other nine just like it.
From here, it is split up into 400 volt, 400 amp lines
that run to the various sub-central distribution centers
or 400 volt rails along the ceiling
where it gets fed into a box that can handle 63 amps.
These power distribution boxes
were actually custom made for DreamHack.
And the older ones can handle two rows of lanterns
while the new ones, largely due to computers
and especially monitors, can handle two rows of lanterns.
And the older ones, largely due to computers
getting more energy efficient since the event started,
can handle three rows.
These are also secured with RCD
so that if leaking current is detected,
let's say someone puts their finger in a socket
or spills Coke on a power bar,
the power is immediately cut to the group
so no one gets hurt
and a maximum of only eight computers will go down.
But what happens if you aren't fortunate enough
to make it to Sweden for the LAN,
but you still wanna watch the eSports
that are all going on at the same time?
That's where DreamHack's very smart
and also kind of jammed
and yank completely custom broadcasting server
comes into play.
So instead of running a traditional broadcasting server
and mixer combination,
all of the video and audio streams go into a video hub,
a video mixer and several rendering servers
that are behind me right now.
And then everything can be switched
and configured over the network.
This allows for some really cool things
like being able to switch inputs from basically anywhere
so that they can be manipulated
from the dedicated mixers here
or by Raspberry Pis placed wherever they're needed.
There's also an in-game observing team
that has access to a delayed feed,
allowing them to show important moments
from several angles instant replay style.
Since they've built a custom solution using Casper CG,
they're able to do other cool integrations
using data from the game engine as well
so they can create graphics
that show things like player health,
what weapon they're using or the timer on the bomb.
These additionally are hooked up to the stage,
so the lights, screens and even the pyrotechnics
like for when the bomb goes off
are all automagically synced.
So it's been really cool to see all of the custom work
that goes into making a massive event like this tick
from the fastest internet connection in the world
to smaller things like the ability to easily mute a host.
And I hope you guys have enjoyed it.
So huge thanks to you for watching
and a massive shout out to ComHem
for allowing us to be here to cover it.
So if you guys disliked this video,
you can hit that button, but if you liked it,
hit like, get subscribed
or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff,
a 10 dream hack in the future
at the link in the video description.
Also down there is our merch store
which has cool shirts like this one
and our community forum, which you should totally join.