[IRTalk] African NRENs

Thu Jan 4 16:38:34 SAST 2018

Dear Boubakar, 

Your work of 10 years ago is finally getting into AAU / AU policy briefs. Congratulations. We must not stop influencing policy for the good of future of African NRENs. For example, we must influence African governments to finance NRENs without making them government parastatals. They must be recognized as part of the national innovation system. TENET in SA is partly financed by the South African government and yet it is not a governmental organization. 

Lishan Adam has studied NRENs in detail and was even a reviewer of Africonnect1 project. I will certainly use the brief to communicate with the Kenya government. 

Thanks

Meoli

From: <boubakarbarry at gmail.com> on behalf of Boubakar Barry <Boubakar.Barry at wacren.net>
Date: Thursday, January 4, 2018 at 12:50 PM
To: Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za>
Cc: Meoli Kashorda <mkashorda at kenet.or.ke>, "african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com" <african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: African NRENs

Happy New Year All,

If I may: Nodumo commissioned the writing of the policy brief as an update of a policy brief I commissioned in 2007 when I was Coordinator of the REN Unit (RENU) at the AAU. It was funded by IDRC.

The author is Lishan Adam, who is well known in the African REN community.

Best wishes,

Boubakar

On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 9:12 AM, Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za> wrote:

Dear Meoli

Thank you for sharing KENETs plans, and also those of the European/North American countries. It is so important to monitor, and identify how we can make all work in Africa, and the African NRENs important stakeholders to work on an African Infrastructure Framework to provide some guidance.

Re the Policy Brief for Stakeholders: It was shared via our AAU colleagues, Nodumo Dhlamini (AAU Director ICT Services & Knowledge Management), which also approved that it can be shared for the benefit of all. She will be in the best position to respond. I agree that is indeed interesting and valuable reading, having a better understanding of what is happening on the continent.

With kind regards

Ina

From: Meoli Kashorda [mailto:mkashorda at kenet.or.ke] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 2, 2018 3:38 PM
To: Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za>; african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: African NRENs

Dear Ina,

Who is the author of the Policy Brief for Stakeholders on African NRENs? Riding the National Research and Education Networking Train in Africa: A Policy Brief for Stakeholders/Association of African Universities. When was it prepared? It is interesting reading. 

KENET aims to be in Level 6 while being the primary provider of Internet bandwidth to member institutions for sustainability. We openly discourage purchase of commodity Internet from commercial providers because it weakens us. 

By the way, in Europe and North America, NRENs are already moving out of community cloud services (SaaS or PaaS) because of lack of scale. NRENs then simply provide high-speed specialized connectivity + access to commodity Internet + peering. The research or educational technology value-added services are all FREE and funded through research grants. 

Thanks

Meoli

From: <african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ina Smith <Ina at assaf.org.za>
Date: Tuesday, January 2, 2018 at 4:18 PM
To: "african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com" <african-open-science-platform at googlegroups.com>
Subject: African NRENs

During the past UbuntuNet Connect 2018 conference, it was clear that more and more NRENs are becoming geared to host Software as a Service (SaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS). This can be services such as identity management, data management, cloud services, security certificates, repositories, and more. See the List of African NREN Partners to find the NREN in your country, and to inquire about services offered.

NRENs can and in some instances already play an important role in  making open science and the sharing of research data (incl. Big Data) a success.

An NREN Capability Maturity Model/Duncan Greaves

Level 6 (Elaborated service offering) marks a fully mature NREN of the kind that characterises Europe, North America and comparable contexts. The NREN is richly connected at high speed to many other networks and resources. Numerous value-added services are available, such as grid and cloud computing resources, user-controlled lightpaths, videoconferencing, and federated identity services. The NREN’s value proposition lies primarily in these services, since bandwidth pricing in such contexts is transparently cost-related. Many institutions will purchase commodity bandwidth from a commercial provider in addition to NREN-specific bandwidth. A culture of collaboration is deeply established. 

Levels of African NRENs according to the following studies:

The Role and Status of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in Africa/Michael Foley (World Bank Study)

Riding the National Research and Education Networking Train in Africa: A Policy Brief for Stakeholders/Association of African Universities

More reading:

List of African NREN Partners

Educational Technology Debate: Exploring ICT and Learning in Developing Countries

Ina Smith

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