Meanwhile, organizers have spent the past few weeks putting the finishing touches on the event, including setting up the network that will power Internet connectivity at the show.

"Interop net is probably the world's largest temporary network," says Steve Shalita, vice president of marketing for NetScout, which is one of more than a dozen companies lending support for InteropNet, the engine that powers the high-speed network for exhibitors and conference attendees. CenturyLink, which is providing the bandwidth, uses dedicated data centers to supply Internet connectivity, which it then provides to the venue via private-line Ethernet, says CenturyLink Senior Product Manager Michael McAfee. "We have the data center services, we have 9GB of Internet connectivity out of those data centers," he says. Two-thirds of the bandwidth provided is IPv4 while the remainder is IPv6.

Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing and social media. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW. Jim Duffy and Jon Gold contributed to this report.

in Network World's Data Center section.