Transcript Document

UNIVERSITY LEADERS’ FORUM
Partnership for Higher Education in Africa
University of Cape Town
19 – 21 November 2006
Connectivity and
Collaboration
Duncan Martin (CEO)
Tertiary Education Network (TENET), South Africa
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Potted history of the Internet
• 1970’s: Internet started by US DoD research arm
• 1980’s: US academe takes control
– Free for all. Netiquette defines the rules. Email is what it’s about.
– Distributed, user-led management.
• 1990’s: Growth of the WWW
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Joe Citizen gets connected.
Rise of the ISP industry
Intellectual property issues become important.
Commercial interests vie for control.
• 2000’s: Commerce and governments take control
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Top level policy power passes to political and legislative levels
Spam (unsolicited, bulk marketing by email)
Death of Netiquette. Viruses. Hackers. Revenge of the geeks.
E-commerce: the web in service of big business
Network carriers and content providers vie for operational control
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Some market factors
• Who pays for inter-continental connectivity?
• Satellites, submarine cables
• VSATs, SAT-3 (WASC and SAFE), EASSy
• “Dry” optical fibre deployment in Africa
• Incumbents, deregulation, competition
• Cross-border half-circuit tariffs
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VSAT vs terrestrial
connectivity
• Most African universities still depend on
satellite (VSAT) connections
– Base stations in Europe, USA, Israel
– All traffic to and from the campus flows via
the satellite
• HOWEVER! Metropolitan institutions
will soon have access to fibre – finished
with VSAT!
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Academic networking
• From mid ’90’s emphasis moves to student
computing
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Deployment of student computing labs
Email accounts for all!
E-Learning paradigms develop
Budgets and access circuits inadequate
• However: researchers’ bandwidth needs grow
exponentially
– Massive growth in research data production
– Grids, high performance computing
– Data mining approach to research
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Academe’s Response: RENs
Let’s build alternative non-commercial
networks for research and education!
And so the first
Research and Education Networks (RENs)
were deployed.
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So what is a REN?
• Uses standard Internet engineering protocols
• Provides alternative, fast links and routes
between connecting sites
• Subject to an Acceptable Use Policy…
• Usually, participating institutions must be
research or educational institutions
• Has peering/transit agreements with other
RENs
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The RENS of the World
• 34 NRENs in Europe
– JANET (UK), Renater (France), SurfNET (Holland),..
– Inter-connected by European Regional REN - Géant
• Canada: CANARIE
• In the USA, there are many different RENs
– Federal scope: Internet2 (Abilene), LambdaRail, ESNet,..
– Statewide scope: CENIC, NYSERNET,..
– Multiple inter-connection agreements
• Asia/Pacific
– ERNET (India), CERNET (China), SINET (Japan), AARNET
(Australia),… Far east regional network TEIN2
• South America: Regional RENs Clara, RedClara
• North Africa: EUMEDCONNECT
– Connections to Géant from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt,
Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian Authority
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• All RENs are inter-connected
• The European Commission has funded
many inter-continental links
• The result is…there is a single
Global REN
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“Commodity” vs “Research” traffic
• Every university still needs a healthy connection
to the general Internet for “commodity” traffic
– email, chat and telephony (in and out)
– access to publishers’ and other suppliers’ sites (e.g.
open source mirrors, Microsoft updates, etc
– general web browsing
– allows external access to university’s own e-learning
and other web resources
• And a healthy NREN connection for “research”
traffic
– uncongested connectivity to other universities and
research institutions world-wide
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What about RENs
in sub-Saharan Africa?
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The goal set at Tunis WSIS
No later than 2008, universities and research
institutions in Southern Africa will have access to
broadband services and the global Internet on the
same level as peers in the developed parts of the
world, with a quality of service in the Gbps rather
than Kbps and with delays, variations and error
rates as defined by normal properties of properly
run terrestrial fibre networks.
Prof Bjorn Pehrson, AAU Conference, WSIS-Tunis, Nov 2005
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NRENs in E’n & S’n Africa
• Operational NRENs
– KENET (Kenya)
– MALICO/MAREN (Malawi)
– TENET (South Africa)
• NRENs in formation
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MoRENet (Mozambique)
RWEDNET (Rwanda)
TENET (Tanzania)
RENU (Uganda)
NREN Projects starting in
ZAMREN (Zambia)
Botswana, DRC, Ghana,
Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal,
Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe
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(See www.ubuntunet.net)
• Fledgling regional Research and Education
Network
– Aims to build the “Géant of Africa”
– Registered as a non-profit association in Amsterdam
– Full legal capacity to operate world-wide
• Membership open to all NRENs of sub-Saharan
Africa
• Founding NRENs
– KENET (Kenya), MAREN (Malawi), MoRENet
(Mozambique), RwEdNet (Rwanda), TENET (South
Africa)
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The UbuntuNet Alliance (2)
• Strong support from Association of African
Universities and from the EC
• Support from donors
– IDRC (Canada), SIDA (Sweden), OSISA
• Trying to get in on ground floor of EASSy
– Attended NEPAD protocol signing in Kigali
– We’re also talking to the operators
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Ownership models for NRENs
• Top-down, power-based ownership
• By national governments? NEPAD? AU?
OR
• Bottom-up, collaborative ownership
• Associations of universities
• Associations of NRENs (like UbuntuNet)
Funding is the key issue
• Will our governments contribute to funding, but
allow universities to own the NRENs?
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Structuring the collaborative
venture
Sage
Remember!
Collaboration seldom walks
more than 50 paces…
…and never climbs stairs….
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Structuring the collaborative
venture (2)
• Collaborate in building the venture, BUT NOT
IN RUNNING IT!
• Design out any need for operational
managers and staff to sustain collaborative
behaviour!
• Design in normal customer-supplier
relationships!
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How?
Have different people and levels responsible for:
• Top-level governance of the REN
(Locate this at Deputy Vice-Chancellor level)
• provision of the REN’s collaborative services
(Board of Directors, CEO, staff)
• Being the demanding customer in each institution (IT
Directors and their staffs)
N.B. Don’t ask IT Directors to also be responsible
for top-level governance of the REN!
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Key messages of this talk
• African Universities demand to be as well
connected as their peers elsewhere!
– Please add your voice and energy!
• Demand affordable access for your
universities to communications infrastructure!
• Get involved with and support your NREN!
– Fight for it to be granted the licenses it needs!
– Ensure sound governance structure
• Support the UbuntuNet Alliance
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