Insomnia Gaming Festival Upgrades Network with FS Solutions for Thousands of People

The Insomnia Gaming Festival, which originated in 1999 as a small gathering of gaming enthusiasts, has evolved into a massive community-focused event, drawing thousands of attendees. With the rapid expansion of the internet and the gaming industry, the festival has grown significantly. However, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted offline e-sports tournaments and events, posing challenges for the gaming community, including Insomnia.

As the world emerges from the pandemic, Insomnia Gaming Festival sees an opportunity to rejuvenate its operations. With the upcoming Insomnia69 event, the festival aims to host some of the largest LAN parties in Europe, attracting tens of thousands of visitors. However, catering to such a large crowd while providing reliable network access for over 3000 users presents a daunting task. Facing the challenge of outdated infrastructure and the need for enhanced connectivity, Insomnia's network engineer, Mathew Burnett, sought solutions to meet their evolving requirements.

With an anticipated attendance of tens of thousands, including 3,000 individuals with computers from home, Insomnia faced immense pressure to meet the high demands for network quality. This included providing reliable connectivity for gaming, downloading large files, and accommodating simultaneous online activities for thousands of users, both online and offline.

Inadequate network infrastructure posed a challenge for the Insomnia Gaming Festival, as it relied on outdated network equipment collected over the years before the pandemic. This equipment was insufficient to support the large-scale demands of events like Insomnia 69, leading to concerns about network stability and performance.

Mathew Burnett was delighted with the cooperation with FS, especially FS's prompt technical support.

"I get quick answers to my questions. I get answers to questions I didn't know I needed to ask yet," Mathew said. "They get good foretelling of what the market is gonna look like and whether their stuff is the sort of things I might need next year." What's more, Mathew added that if he were uncertain about how a selection of things worked, FS would provide a custom technical solution and guarantee that it would work for him.

Looking back, Mathew noted, that the process for implementation of the network set-up and upgrade went very smoothly. "It was a surprise to us as it took us about a weekend to get from nothing to the start of a working network," he said.

"We can arrive onsite with everything in the box turned off. On a Tuesday morning, I take it off the lorry. On Tuesday afternoon, we worked on that," Mathew said. "By Wednesday lunchtime, I've got a network big enough to support 3,000 people."

Sean Mei, a technical engineer for the data center at FS.com, led Insomnia's network upgrade project. He recalled, that after receiving Mathew's needs, the FS technical team immediately analyzed their networking problems. It provided corresponding solutions for their diverse connectivity requirements, such as N8560-32C supporting VRF function as the core device and S5850-48T4Q providing MLAG connectivity, etc.

Account manager Moon noted that FS's competitive pricing helped to shave thousands of dollars off Insomnia's network upgrade costs. "FS's powerful performance in timely inventory updates, free technical support, and standard after-sales assurance was a key foundation in driving the network upgrade forward smoothly," Moon said. "We are grateful that Mathew was pleased with our networking solution and support."

Partnering with FS, Insomnia's network underwent a comprehensive upgrade, with FS equipment replacing switches across the entire aggregation layer. This transition to FS hardware significantly boosted network performance and capacity, supporting heavy traffic loads. With FS backbone infrastructure in place, bandwidth increased from a few gigabits to a hundred-gigabit links, ensuring seamless connectivity for festival attendees. As evidenced by the i69 report, 93% of Insomnia customers reported a positive experience, with 84% expressing a likelihood of returning, underscoring the impact of the network upgrade.