SANReN - South African Research Network

1. Who will be connected to SANReN?

All South African research institutes and tertiary educational institutions and associated support institutions such as library consortia that currently use TENET's services are entitled to connect to SANReN and will eventually be connected to SANReN.

The rate at which all this can be implemented is subject to budgetary constraints. First priority is to provide a very high-speed, nationwide backbone network with Points-of-Presence in all major cities. As regards connecting sites, because emphasis is placed on research, preference is being given to connecting institutions that are currently busy with or could potentially be involved in scientific research activities. This includes many universities, research councils such as the CSIR, NRF sites such as iThemba Labs, and various other research institutes.

In addition, any institution that is entitled to connect to SANReN may do so if a local access circuit to a SANReN PoP can be provided independently of SANReN's budget. The circuit must be suitably sized and configured according to SANReN's standards.

By agreement, TENET intends to publish and maintain on its website http://www.tenet.ac.za a comprehensive list giving current information about the plans for connecting each TENET site to SANReN.

2. What equipment/links/service will be installed and offered at each proposed site?

Within the metros sites will be receiving single or multiple 1 or 10 Gbps connections. Such connections will be handed over in the following manner:

• 1Gbps: copper or single mode fiber Ethernet connection
• 10Gbps: Single mode fiber Ethernet connection
• Outside of the metros, connection speeds will depend on what is available and affordable.
3. How will sites be interconnected in each city/region, and how will the cities be interconnected (including speeds)?

Sites will be interconnected with either a 10 Gbps DWDM ring, or a fiber "Grey" ring. Sites on the DWDM ring will be receiving a 10 Gbps service at the site, sites on the "Grey" ring will be receiving one or multiples of 1 Gbps connections. The size of the connection per institution will be made by SANReN, and will be based on a reasonable demand. The idea is that each institute will be given a surplus of bandwidth where such a surplus does not become unnecessary

• e.g. if an institution can use 1Gbps of service, the service will be upgraded to 2Gbps, but it won't necessarily jump up to 10Gbps.

Fibre rings will be built in each of the metros making use of local fiber providers, telecommunications companies, metro councils etc. Nationally a 10Gbps network will be built by a telecommunications provider that will provide interconnectivity between the metros.

Non Metro sites will be connected to the SANReN national network where feasible, such a connection will typically be at 1 Gbps (or whatever can be afforded) and will be connected to the closest SANReN POP.

4. Where will the national and international Internet and NREN gateways be located on the network.

The Reefhead Gateway in Johannesburg will continue to serve as a gateway to other South African networks, both via direct peering/transit links and via JINX. In time, the Reefhead will also be a Gateway to other NRENs of the region via UbuntuNet. The Breehead gateway in Cape Town will be a gateway to other South African networks via direct peering/transit and via CINX if and when CINX is resurrected.

A new Gateway, to be called the Beachhead Gateway, will be established at the SEACOM Cable Station in Mtunzini. All international traffic (other than to neighbouring NRENs) will flow via the SEACOM cable, which will link the Beachhead Gateway to the UbuntuNet router in Telecity, London. As is the case at present, the UbuntuNet router in London is the aggregation/divergence point of international REN and commodity traffic. The UbuntuNet router is currently operated by TENET on behalf of the UbuntuNet Alliance.

5. What redundancy will be provided among the gateways?

Once CINX is operational, SANReN's connections to JINX and CINX will provide some redundancy, as regards national traffic through the gateways. Until SANReN/TENET can augment the SEACOM IRU, preferably with submarine cable capacity via the West Coast route, the Beachhead Gateway will be the sole international connection point.

6. What speeds will the gateways deliver?

The current connection to JINX is 10Gbps, however, this will be renegotiated in the future when it becomes necessary.

7. Please provide an annotated logical network design diagram
Network Design Diagram
8. Exactly where will the logical and physical demarcation point be between SANReN and the sites (and what IP space will be used where)?

The logical and physical demarcation point will be the site-facing port on the SANReN switch situated at each institution. TENET will be responsible for all VLAN and IP configurations.

9. Which of the equipment used to interconnect SANReN and the site will be supplied by SANReN, and what will the site have to supply?

Most SANReN equipment will be supplied by SANReN. There are some exceptions which include sites that are not part of the list of sites supplied to SANReN by the DST for which SANReN is contractually bound to provide equipment. SANReN will endeavour to provide equipment for all sites up to the point where our budget runs out. The equipment at the sites will be either Cisco 15454 DWDM equipment for the 10 Gbps sites, or Cisco 4924 switches for the 1Gbps sites.

10. What other resources will be required at each site in terms of:
1. Rack-space (height, depth)?
• 10Gbps sites: 1 rack
• 1Gbps sites: 10 U's in a rack
2. Power supply?

This will differ site by site, but will never be more than that of a 7600 router. Power requirements required by SANReN from the sites are not massive. Full details will be supplied on the website in time.

3. Air conditioning?

Full details will be supplied on the website when finalised.

Sites will need to provide an environment that complies with generally accepted standards for data centres.

11. Will SANReN provide L2 connectivity between sites owned by the same institution that are located on either the DWDM or Grey rings (and will these L2 links be able to pass between the rings)?

Yes.

12. Will SANReN provide special-purpose L2 circuits between different institutions?

Yes, upon request if suitable motivation can be provided.

13. What is the procedure for ordering the various SANReN services?

TENET will be providing SANReN services, and a procedure for ordering such services will be set up by TENET.

14. Will SANReN provide NREN, National-peering and International IP services on different interfaces/VLANs to sites who require traffic to be split for firewall/shaping purposes?

Requirement for this splitting of traffic and ways of doing it will be work shopped with interested institutions in the near future. SANReN does NOT provide firewalling facilities or services.

15. Will SANReN accept BGP announcements from sites, and what prefixes would be accepted/propagated to SANReN peers/transit providers?

Yes. SANReN will exchange BGP route announcements with sites that require this, in accordance with good Internet practice. As a research and education network that provides both REN and commodity Internet connectivity to its beneficiary institutions but not to other institutions, SANReN will ensure that it does not transit traffic that is both sourced in and destined to commodity networks and also does not announce to other RENs unwanted routes to commodity networks.

16. For sites that use BGP, what communities will routes received from SANReN have?

No consultation on this matter has taken place yet and no decisions have been taken.

17. Will SANReN allow sites to control the propagation of BGP announcements to SANReN peers? If so, how?

No consultation on this question has taken place yet and no decisions have been taken.

18. Will SANReN support multicast IPv4 and IPv6? If so, what multicast group traffic will be routed and how? (PIM? MSDP? MBGP?).
SANReN will support multicast IPv4 and IPv6. No consultation on the details has taken place yet and no decisions have been taken
19. Will multicast traffic be exchanged on a separate L2 interface or VLAN?

No consultation on this question has taken place yet and no decisions have been taken at this stage.

Service and support questions:

20. Who will be responsible for support and maintenance of SANReN?

Both SANReN and TENET will be playing roles in the support and maintenance of the SANReN network. TENET is responsible for all operational aspects of support and maintenance of the network and for invoking action by equipment and service providers to SANReN. Where supply contracts are in the name of the CSIR, TENET will, when necessary, escalate unresolved issues to the CSIR.

21. How do we report problems?

TENET will ensure that a 24 x 7 Service Desk is available, as it is today for GEN3 services. The Service Desk will accept incident reports, perform first-line diagnostics, route incidents appropriately, retain ownership of each incident and manage it to completion, provide appropriate progress information to the affected sites, and ultimately secure the agreement of the affected sites that the incident has been satisfactorily resolved.

22. What monitoring and measurement will be in place?

TENET will provide the same range of operational information as it provides today in respect of its GEN3 services, and will introduce additional reports as may be agreed from time to time with connecting institutions.

23. What are the service level targets?

See the answer to the following question.

24. Will there be a formal SLA, and if yes, who will be the parties to the SLA?

A Service Provider Agreement will form an integral part of the Agency Agreement between TENET and each participating institution. The SPA will include a Service Level Agreement, which will specify the obligations of both the provider and the customer. The SLA will include availability targets, fault reporting procedures, availability metrics, incident response times, mean time to restore targets, escalation procedures, and review and reporting procedures.

The SLA will be broadly based upon ITIL principles, i.e. the goal of service level management is to maintain and to improve the quality of services by means of a continuous cycle of agreeing, monitoring, reviewing and reporting IT service quality, coupled with a continuous service improvement program.

Governance questions:

25. Who "owns" SANReN?

SANReN is a project of the Departments of Science and Technology (DST), which has contracted the Meraka Institute of the CSIR to deploy and manage SANReN. The CSIR is the contracting party in all contracts for the provision of goods and services for use in the SANReN project. The CSIR is the legal owner and custodian of all the equipment and contracts for connectivity, however, the DST may decide to give the equipment to any institution that it wishes. Currently the CSIR's Meraka Insitute is the custodian of the SANReN project.

The CSIR has entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with TENET to provide operational services to all beneficiary institutions, covering both service delivery and the recovery of SANReN's operational costs.

26. What governance structure will be in place?

The CSIR will be the governing body of the network, however, inputs from the institutions and TENET will be highly regarded and will in fact be what SANReN will base its decision making on.

27. How will the ongoing costs be managed?

Ongoing costs or "Running" costs will be recovered from the institutions by TENET. The monthly running costs per unit of bandwidth will, however, be far less than institutions are currently charged. Institutions will continue paying the same monthly amounts they currently pay for TENET services, however, the local and international bandwidth that they will be getting for their money will increase by anything between 2-100 times.

28. Will institutions be expected to pay any ongoing costs, and if so what, how and to whom?

Yes, TENET will continue recovering operations and maintenance costs, including TENET's overhead costs, from the institutions. The unit costs of bandwidth will be dramatically lower than they are at present, for which reason institutions will be able to afford much higher bandwidths.

No cost recovery of SANReN capital is required from TENET or the institutions.

29. How will future design changes, upgrades and expansions be proposed, managed and funded?

SANReN is in the process of getting additional funding from the DST for the project. Should SANReN be unsuccessful, such costs will be recovered from the institutions by TENET.

30. Will the institutions be consulted?

Whenever any decision is to be made that will affect an institution in any way, the institution will be consulted. Both SANReN and TENET see themselves as being at the service of the institutions, and will endeavour to serve the institutions through consultation and sound decision making procedures.

31. What is a Beneficiary Institution?

Beneficiary Institution (BI) - means an institution designated by the Department of Science and Technology as an institution entitled to be connected to the SANReN network, including by agreement, current TENET Institutions.

32. What is SANReN?

SANReN - means South African National Research and education Network, a Department of Science and Technology project, implemented by the CSIR through its Meraka Institute on behalf of DST.

33. Will there be an Acceptable Usage Policy?

Yes, in terms of TENET's existing Agency Agreement each BI is obliged to accept the AUP. The AUP will be amended from time-to-time to ensure that SANReN's mandate and Terms-of-Reference (TOR), including any licensing obligations in terms of the ECS Act (as amended) are not compromised.