The South African NREN:

Overview & Current Activities

Presented by Zuki Makalima

Head of Projects and Procurement: SANReN

SA Libraries ICT Workshop

28 – 29 November 2019

Inputs from:

Leon Staphorst (Director: SANReN) and

Duncan Greaves (CEO: TENET)

• National Research and Education Network (NRENs) are specialised network

infrastructure and service providers that exclusively supports a country’s research

and education communities

• Currently there are many NRENs active globally, e.g. ESNet, JANET, AARNET,

REANNZ

• Most NREN’s have Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) funded directly from government,

Operational Expenditure (OPEX) by beneficiaries

• Most NRENs are not-for-profit organisations

• Major paradigm shift from commercial networks: Provide as much bandwidth

as possible at as little cost as possible, Quality of Service through over

provisioning (No contention)

• Services range from commodity Internet services to specialised NREN services

geared for science and research (e.g. LightPaths, BW-on-demand, experiments)

• Technologies ranges from broadband fibre optics to wireless

What is an NREN?

Source: TERENA COMPENDIUM of National Research and

Education Networks in Europe, 2012

• Collaborate

• Innovate

• Advance

A Community

Network

• The roles and responsibilities of the South African National Research and Education

Network (NREN) are distributed between the South African National Research

Network (SANReN) Competency Area (CA) at the Council for Scientific and

Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Tertiary Education and Research Network of

South Africa (TENET)

• The South African NREN (SA NREN) provides broadband connectivity and

advanced services to all publicly funded universities, sciences councils, science

projects of national interest (e.g. Square Kilometer Array (SKA)), institutions that

support innovation, Tertiary Vocational Education and Training colleges (TVETs),

selected schools networks, academic hospitals, national libraries, etc.

South African NREN

Structure

• South African National Research Network (SANReN):

o Created in 2006 and implemented by the CSIR

o Part of the National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS) alongside the Centre for High

Performance Computing (CHPC) and Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA)

o Primarily funded by the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI)

o Designs, acquires and implements international, backbone, metropolitan and access networks (to eudcation

sector and organizations doing R&D)

o Develops and incubates advanced services (e.g. SAFIRE, eduroam, CSIRT), hand-over to TENET for

operations

• Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET):

o Created in 2000, a Private non-profit company with membership from its beneficiaries in higher education

and public sector research

o Primarily funded through cost recovery from beneficiaries for services delivered

o Handles all contracting for services with beneficiaries

o Receives DHET funding for Rural Campus Connectivity Projects (RCCPs)

o Operates the SANReN network under the terms of a collaboration agreement with the CSIR

o Also acquires and implements links (e.g. RCCP links)

South African NREN =

SANReN + TENET

• License exemption with South African Regulator to provide network and communications

services

• Currently 20 staff members, based in Pretoria

• 3 main business areas, based on value chain:

o Services Development and Incubation (SDI)

o Network Engineering (NE)

o Project and Procurement Management (PPM)

• Funding from DST in 3 yearly cycles via Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF):

o Phase 1: 2007/8 to 2009/10

o Phase 2: 2010 /11 to 2012/13

o Phase 3: 2013/14 to 2015/16

o Phase 4: Part of first NICIS contract (2016/17 to 2018/19)

o Phase 5: Part of second NICIS contract (2019/20 to 21/22)

• West Africa Cable System (WACS):

o Investment in 2013 for 7,3% right-of-use

o Currently have right to 220Gbps between SA and UK, growing to a possible 1.5 Tbps through future

WACS upgrades (890 Gbps after WACS Upgrade 2)

• Membership of Global REN CEO’s Forum (invited to join in 2016)

SANReN Overview

• CSIR is implementing and managing

South Africa’s National Integrated

Cyberinfrastrucutre System (NICIS) on

behalf of the DST

• NICIS is geared at ensuring successful

participation of South African

researchers and educators in the global

knowledge production and

dissemination effort

7

NICIS Overview

• Objective 1: Grow and manage the SANReN network’s reach and capacity

• Objective 2: Grow the stature, relevance and sustainability of the SA NREN

• Objective 3: Support national science and education initiatives

• Objective 4: Develop a portfolio of advanced services and tools to enable and

support the beneficiaries and implementers of the SANReN network

• Objective 5: Fostering innovation, knowledge generation and human capital

development in the SA NREN, as well as the larger broadband community

• Objective 6: Continuous improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of the

operations of SANReN

SANReN Strategic

Objectives

SANReN CONNECTIVITY

PROJECT LIFE-CYCLE

Feasability Planning Design ProcurementRollout\

ImplementationCommissioning

\ HandoverOperations

(TENET)

• Total available broadband capacity (TABC) provided by whole network is 3500 Gbps

• Services more than 1.2 million users (students, researchers, lecturers, admin staff, etc) daily

• Connected sites:

• Main campuses of all public 26 universities and most satellite campuses

• Statutory science and research institutions ( e.g. CSIR, ARC, SANSA, HSRC, etc.)

• Large science experiments (e.g. SKA, MeerKAT)

• Affiliated entities (e.g. CHE, IZIKO, USAf, etc.)

• Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges

• Selected schools networks (e.g. Albany Schools Network, e-Schools Network)

• Selected private higher education institutions (e.g. Monash)

• Institutions in support of innovation (e.g. Innovation Hub, NIPMO, TIA)

• Academic and teaching hospitals (e.g. Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, Groote Schuur Hospital)

• National libraries in Pretoria, Cape Town (Bloemfontein and PMB)

• Dedicated research teams within non-education and science related ministries (e.g. National Department

of Health, Department of Environmental Affairs)

SA NREN Network Reach

and Capacity

• SANReN has connected 236 university and research sites

• TENET has connected more than 150 university and research sites

• SABEN has connected more than 90 TVET sites

• Multiple 10 Gbps links make up the national backbone network, upgrade to 100Gbps under way

• 8 metropolitan networks at 10 Gbps each (Johannesburg, Tshwane, eThekwini, Cape Town, Bloemfontein,

Pietermaritzburg, Vanderbijlpark, East London and Polokwane)

• Several new metropolitan networks in planning (Port Elizabeth , Nelspruit, George)

• Mostly fibre connections, but also some proprietary wireless, free space optics, satellite, microwave and TVWS

• In excess of 3000km dark fibre and 6000km managed bandwidth

• Presence at all major Internet exchanges, including JINX, CINX, Teracos ( Johannesburg, Cape Town and

Durban)

• SANReN owns 7.3% of total available capacity on the West Africa Cable System (WACS) undersea cable.

Right of ue approx 890 Gbps after participation in WACS Upgrage 2.

• 60 Gbps of WACS capacity activated (including 10Gbps for Global REN CEO Forum’s GNA)

• 60 Gbps SEACOM capacity activated

• Part of the Global NREN CEO Forum, contributes to the Global Network Architecture (GNA) initiative

SA NREN Network Reach

and Capacity…cont

NREN Commons

(SA LNA)

Global REN (GREN) (formerly

Global Network Architecture

(GNA) Initiative)

Current SANReN

Backbone

SA NREN Backbone

100Gbps Backbone

Current and Future

SA NREN Backbone

SA NREN Backbone

SA NREN Backbone

(live heat map)

SA NREN Transit and

Peering (live heat map)

• Ongoing connection of new sites

• Implementation of the new SANReN dark fibre national backbone network

• Dedicated dark fibre link for SARAO between Carnarvon and Beaufort West

to connect the SKA-1/MeerKAT site to the new SANReN dark fibre national

backbone

• Metro dark fibre refresh projects - Johannesburg (now), Durban (to start in

2020), Tshwane, Cape Town

• Supporting SABEN in connecting TVETs to SANReN by upgrading selected

SANReN backbone links and PoP infrastructure

• Refresh of the Johannesburg to Tshwane Intercity connection

• 100 Gbps WACS for SACS capacity swap with RNP (Brazilian NREN)

Current SANReN

Connectivity Activities

SANReN Services

• eduroam handed over to TENET for operations

• Vidyo now a stable production service

• perfSONAR roll-out continues

• The South African Identity Federation (SAFIRE) handed over to TENET, access to

eduGAIN completed

• Computer Security Incidence Response Team (CSIRT) – Pro-active services (e.g.

vulnerability scans) with SANReN, reactive services with TENET

• Performance Enhancement Response Team (PERT) in development – initial services

will include perfSONAR and Science DMZ PoCs

• VOIP Services

• ORCID consortium

22

• CSIRT alerting services

• Microsoft Azure proof-of-concept

• Amazon Web Services proof-of-concept

• Globus service using PERT DT infrastructure

• Figshare service in collaboration with DIRISA

• Secondary DNS hosting

• IT shared services proof-of-concept platform for USAf (i.e. services

brokerage) to host shared MOOC, LMS, ERP, etc applications

• OSCARS light-path on demand service proof-of-concept

SANReN Services

Development Activities

The CASE of SABEN

TVET Colleges Connection

Project (TCCP)

SABEN Highlights

• TVETS approached TENET – Connection policy – Self-funded connections

• TVETs also approached SANReN – Steve Moman???

• In January 2013 Duncan Greaves was appointed as TENET CEO.

• He then briefed one of his project managers that he must engage TVETs, so that they can self-connect to the SANReN Network.

• From 2013, SANReN and DST tried a top-down approach, tried to get funding from DHET

– Did not realise due to political inertia to change the budgeting model for TVETs

• The project manager realised that there is an appetite for true broadband.

SABEN Highlights

• in 2015 TENET convened a meeting with all TVETs, 66% showed up.

• History of SANReN and TENET explained.

• TVETs resolve to form an organisation like TENET

• Fails due to lack of capability.

• Then they approached TENET to help them

• In 2015, SABEN is launched as a TENET Project.

• The TVETs access network continued to grow using this self-fund model.

• When about 80 sites were connected using TVETs budgets, a connectivity proposal was made to the then DHET. Showing this real success.

• The then DHET (through NSF) agrees to fund TVETs to the tune of about R250 million.

• Subsequently, SABEN is registered as Non – profit company.

Purpose of SABEN

• Procurement Strategy - A Sole Provider of NREN

services to TVETs

• Primary Target Market - Servicing Technical and

Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector in

South Africa.

• Secondary Market - Similar to SA NREN, it also

support schools where feasible.

• Value Proposition - Provides high-speed, broadband

connectivity for TVETS to support administration,

teaching and learning.

SABEN Offerings for

TVETs

• A connection with minimum speak of 200Mbps.

• The connections are scalable.

• The synchronous connections provide equal upload and download speeds.

• There is no data cap/limitation, contention, throttling or shaping on the connections

• SABEN provides a 24/7 call centre with real-time monitoring and management of the connections

• There is also a WIFI portion on this project.

SA NREN at a glance

What is an NRENA national research and education network

(NREN) is a dedicated internet infrastructure and

service provider to the research and educational

communities within a country.

NRENs provide connectivity and services to

higher education establish ments (typically

universities) and research institutes but can also

support schools, further education colleges,

libraries and other public institutes.

NRENs are a vital component in e-Learning, e-

Science and e-Research strategies as they bring

a common approach to the coordination and

deployment of national and international

communication networks and services.

About the South African NRENCollaboration between SANReN Competency Area (CA) and TENET to build and support the SA NREN

as a research, education and innovation platform for the benefit of its customers and users, and for the

realisation of associated national development objectives.

SANReN CA is responsible for design, acquisition and roll-out. TENET operates the network and is

responsible for the securing of internet gateway and IT services.

SABEN, a division of TENET, is running the TVET Colleges Connection Project (TCCP) to connect

colleges to the SA NREN network through an initiative of the DHET, with funding from the NSF.

TCC

P P

RO

JECT C

on

ne

ctivity Be

ne

fits

South African NREN BenefitsUncontended backbone bandwidth ranging from speeds of 10Gb through to 100Gb links built on an

“overprovisioning” of bandwidth model. This network is engineered to support high-quality services

which remain consistent regardless of the number of users on the network. The network comprises a

national and international fibre backbone, multiple metropolitan rings and extensive long-haul circuits to

reach important research installations, as well as providing bandwidth rich commodity internet type

connectivity via caching, peering and transit providers.

Beneficiaries of the network can enjoy participation in a growing portfolio of additional services such as

DNS registry, eduroam, SAFIRE, ORCID, certification services, video and web conferencing, as well as

brokered cloud, amongst other services.

The charging model is based on synchronous port speed rather than utilisation or data transferred so as

to not discourage the usage of advanced data intensive applications.

The benefits of collective buying on a national and international basis bring the ability to deliver good

quality connectivity at an economic price not necessarily achievable if single institutions were to go to

market with similar requests.

Being affiliated with the SA NREN brings credibility on a national and international level and enhances

the ability for an institution to participate.

The network is operated with bottom up ownership in mind with all institutions having a voice around

the decisions needing to be made, underlined by a common interest in the success of a network that is

efficient and responsive to user needs.

Beneficiaries can benefit from connecting with people and institutions with similar interests and the

principle of solidarity between the community members brings about the ability to collaborate and

connect to each other without restriction.

South African NREN

TCCP Project

Competency Area (CA)

Collaboration

SA NREN Organisational Structure

• Project Sponsor – Department of Higher Education,

Science and Technology (through NSF).

• DHEST/NSF TCCP Project Oversight Committee.

• SABEN governed by Board of Directors Includes TENET

CEO, SANReN Director)

• SABEN lead by a GM

• TCCP Project lead

• TCCP Project Staff

– Project staff

– SOC

• Engineering Support from SANReN and TENET.

Governance/Project

Structure

SABEN Network Architecture

InternetExchange

Open Peering

SA NREN

Distribution Network

TVET

LAN

SA NREN Core NetworkFunded by DST/DHET [Jointly Operated by SANReN/TENET]

Wireless(200M to 1G)

Internet Exchange

Open Peering

TVET SiteFirewall/CPE

TVET

LAN

PoP Distribution Switch

TVET SiteFirewall/CPE

Dark Fibre(200M to 1Gb)

TVET

LAN

TVET SiteFirewall/CPE

Managed Fibre(200M to 1Gb)

M

M

SIT

E N

ET

WO

RK

AC

CE

SS

SIT

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ET

WO

RK

AC

CE

SS

CO

RE

130Gb Activated UncontendedInternational Bandwidthto London + Amsterdam

via 4 Undersea Cable Systems

COMMODITY INTERNETInternational Market

JNBCore

T E

R A

C O

Internet Exchange

Open Peering

Internet Exchange

Open Peering

SABEN TCCP

CO

RE

SABEN TCCP

SABEN TCCP SABEN TCCP

INTERNATIONALCONNECTIVITY

GEANT + Partner Research+ Education Networks

140GB PEERING + CACHING

NationalPrivate Peering

40GB PEERING + CACHING

NREN Services

Wire

les

s, D

ark

or M

an

ag

ed

Fib

reU

pfro

nt C

osts

Fu

nd

ed

by N

SF

/DH

ET

Up

fron

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sts

Fu

nd

ed

by N

SF

/DH

ET

Wire

les

s, D

ark

or M

an

ag

ed

Fib

re

Trust +Identity

TVET Colleges Connection Project

ac.zaRegistry

MirrorService

Video

Conferencing

SANReNCSIRT

eduroamSAFIREORCID

FileSender

perfSONAR

Co

nnectivity a

t a G

lance

Revision JUN2019-A

COMMODITY INTERNETSouth African Market

PoP Distribution Switch

PoP Distribution Switch

DurbanCore

T E

R A

C O

CapeTownCore

T E

R A

C O

SABEN CONNECTIVITY

PROJECT LIFE-CYCLE

• Very similar to SANReN process

• SABEN chose a Big Bang Approach

• Ran one RFP requesting connections to

325 campuses

• Technology choice: Fibre, managed

bandwidth and wireless.

• Eight (8) service providers are being

contracted

Agreement structure

• It takes time and effort to implement a proper network.

• Importance of cost recovery mechanism for

sustainability.

• The Big Bang Approach is still being tested.

• Importance of being a smart buyer.

• Keep it lean and mean.

• Experience project lead

• Organisational Governance

• Oversight role by project sponsor

• TCCP gets audited yearly

Lessons Learnt

Suggested way forward

• Work in a collaborative fashion - Community

• This meeting needs to make some resolutions about the Library ICT Strategy including connectivity.

• The Department of Arts and culture (DAC) (As project sponsor for the Libraries) may consider leveraging the SANReN Network.

• DAC (As project sponsor) needs engage with Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) (The SANReN Network sponsor) to communicate its intentions.

• Its only then CSIR can have meaningful discussions with NLSA/DAC

• SA NREN traffic graphs (live): https://graphs.tenet.ac.za/iris/api2/tenet/home

• SA NREN backbone network map (physical and logical – static):

http://www.sanren.ac.za/sa-nren-international-capacity/

• SA NREN link status map (physical – live):

https://linkmon.sanren.ac.za/nrenmap/

• SA NREN metro network maps (logical - static):

http://www.sanren.ac.za/metropolitan-rings/

Links to SA NREN

Maps

Contact Details:

Zuki Makalima

Email: zmakalima@csir.co.za

zuki@sanren.ac.za

Tel: +27 12 841 2315

url: www.sanren.ac.za

Leon Staphorst

Director: South African National Research Network (SANReN)

Email: lstaphorst@csir.co.za

leon@sanren.ac.za

Tel: +27 12 841 3236

url: www.sanren.ac.za

Duncan Greaves

Chief Executive Officer: Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET)

Email: dbg@tenet.ac.za

Tel: +27 21 763 7144

url: www.tenet.ac.za

Questions ?