Designing a network infrastructure to support a research and educational network using GTUC and University of Ghana

Table of Content

Acknowledgement

Abstract

CHAPTER 1 PROBLEM DEFINITION
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background Study
1.2 Problem Statement /Problem Definition
1.3 Research Objectives
1.4 Research Question
1.5 Relevance of Studies
1.6 Proposed Chapters for Project

CHAPTER 2 EXISTING RENS AND THEIR NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURES
2.0 Overview
2.1 What are research and educational networks?
2.2 What necessitated the formation of REN
2.3 The Network Components of a REN
2.4 How REN operates
2.5 Existing RENs

CHAPTER 3 TECHNOLOGIES DEPLOYED IN RENS
3.0 Overview
3.1 Core Network of a REN
3.2 Optical Transmission
3.3 Multiplexing Technologies
3.4 Networking Protocols
3.5 Protocol Stack used in the Core Network of RENS

CHAPTER 4 - STAKEHOLDERS REQUIREMENT AND ANALYSIS
4.0 Overview
4.1 Description of Respondents
4.2.2 Faculty Questionnaires
4.3. Results and Analysis
4.4 Interviews with University Authorities
4.5 Interviews with Heads and Staff of IT Department of both Universities

CHAPTER 5 - DESIGN OF APPROPRIATE REN FOR GHANA USING UG AND GTUC
5.1 Overview
5.2 Technical Design of Appropriate REN in Ghana
5.3 Non Technical Design of Appropriate REN in Ghana

CHAPTER 6 LIMITATIONS, RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
6.1 Limitations of Study
6.2 Recommendation
6.3 Conclusion

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

Acknowledgement

The group members namely Mr. Kingsley Awuku Aboagye, Mr. Benjamin N. A. Cobblah, Miss. Grace Agyemang Anim, Mr. Felix Attuquaye Okai, and Mrs. Clara Pinkrah-Sam are grateful to everyone who aided in this project especially Prof. Reza Tadayoni, Dr. Franklin Asamoah-Baah, Mr. Francis Fiakpornu and other authorities in both universities for their consistent supervision, feedback and helpful suggestions throughout the project.

Abstract

This project is aimed at designing an appropriate network infrastructure in Ghana to support research and educational network using Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC) and University of Ghana (UG).

An overview of what RENs are generally about and a study of existing RENs in developed countries where considered to gain insight into REN infrastructure, their organizations and operations. Further technologies employed in RENs were also looked at with emphasis on technologies employed in the Core and Access Networks of REN. Technologies such SONET/SDH, MPLS, ATM and it application were also delved into in this project.

Intended users and stakeholders where identified and their requirements analyzed to determine the best technology needed to support their needs of an appropriate REN.

Finally the design of an appropriate and scalable for GTUC and UG is proposed in this report with careful consideration of the cost model, ownership options and organizational structure appropriate for the development of a sustainable REN in Ghana

CHAPTER 1 PROBLEM DEFINITION

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background Study

Research and Educational Networks (RENs) was originally a product of academic research to facilitate efficient and cost effective to share scare and expensive computer resources, to communicate and to collaborate by researchers and academic purposes. In 1976s, Norway established UNINET followed by computer Science Network (CSNET) in 1981 and then NSFNET in 1985 in the US. The Joint Academic Network (JANET) in the UK was established in 1984 whiles the Swiss Education and Research Network (SWITCH) was done in 1987, NORDUNet for the Nordic countries in 1988 and CA*net in Canada in 1990. ¹

In Africa the establishment of REN started later when the universities that introduced or pioneered access to the Internet (using TCP/IP) in South Africa (UNINET made its first TCP/IP connection in 1991), followed by Zambia in 1994 with the university of Zambia establishing ZAMNET, the country's first ISP and Mozambique in 1995 by Eduardo Mondlane University. The earliest physical academic and research network in later Tertiary Education Network (TENET) IN 2001. T he first physical inter-nation or regional REN in Africa was the East and Southern Africa Network (ESANET) established in 1991 with funding from the Uganda (Makerere University), Kenya of Nairobi) Zambia (University of Zambia) and Zambia (University of Zimbabwe ). ²

The genesis of the development of research and educational network in Ghana can e traced to 1995 when the Balme library. University of Ghana was designated as the National Node for the Fidonet email systems. Through this project which was funded by IDRC connectivity was established amongst the five public university libraries at Legon, Kumasi, Tamale, Winneba and Cape Coast and CSIR. These nodes provided access to some educational institutions in their respective regions where they store and forward mail on behalf of these institutions for an onward transmission to London through the Balme Library's gateway at Legon on poll basis. ³

In relation to a research project between Technical University of Denmark and University of Ghana, a network infrastructure was implemented in 1998 using different wireless technologies. The network was connected to the internet back bone using a satellite (VSAT) connection. The network was envisaged to consist of different research and educational institutions with the existing universities ring at University of Ghana (Legon) and the Library network as associated networks. The connection to other institutions in Accra area like CSIR and Korle-bu were point Wi- Fi connections. The Wi-Fi solution was immediately relevant for the institutions in and around Accra with a distance of about 20 to 30 Kilometers to University of Ghana. In the case of institutions far away from Legon separate solutions were sought, e.g., using the fire during that is installed by the Volta River Authority (VRA) of Ghana. This is the furthest so far in the development of REN in Ghana however due to lack of collaboration and supporting policies, the network is not operational. ⁴

With the proliferation of telecommunication companies in the country, backed by the Government of Ghana's commitment to drive the country's economy using ICT, there is the national fiber optic backbone infrastructure which is about 95% complete nationwide. The private sector's involvement in the establishment of fiber rings cannot be life out. The establishment of a REN in Ghana at this point will be worthwhile if considered.

Although Ghana is the first sub-Saharan country to have Internet connectivity,[2] ⁵ the country still grapples with interconnectivity and access between institutions. Over ten (10) years ago, the country had a research and educational network which connected the University of Ghana, the hub, to the following institutions:

- University of Cape Coast (Central Region)
- Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ashanti Region)
- University College of Education, Winneba (Central Region)
- Center for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Accra.
- Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), Accra
- University of Development Studies, Tamale (Northern Region)

Unfortunately this novelty did not survive the test of time and the infrastructure is broken down.

Since then the government of Ghana has been involved in developing ICT policies to be used for the country. Some of the existing ICT legislative ACTS include;

a) The National Communication Authority Act 2008 (Act 769) ⁶ which is the central body to license and regulate communications activities and services in the country; and to provide for related purposes.
b) National Information Technology Agency Act 2008(Act 771) ⁷ which regulates information communications technology and provides for related purposes.
c) The Electronic Transaction Act 2008 (Act772) ⁸ which provide for and facilitate electronic communications and related transactions in the public interest.
d) The Electronic Communication Act 2008 (Act 775) ⁹ which provides for the regulation of electronic communications, the regulation of broadcasting, the use of the electro-magnetic spectrum and for related matters.

Existing ICT policies in Ghana include;

a) ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) [ ¹⁰ developed in 2003
b) ICT in Education Policy developed in 2006 ¹¹ and amended in 2008

Despite these policy developments, ICT infrastructure has not improved and also failed to provide the results needed for the growth of the country particularly in the education sector. Based on the roadmap governing the country’s ICT needs that is ICT for Accelerated Development, developed in 2003, which seeks to enable graduates from Ghanaian educational institutions to confidently and creatively use ICT tools and resources to develop requisite skills and knowledge needed to be active participants in the global knowledge economy by 2015 and to transform Ghana into information rich, knowledge base, technology driven, high income economy and society, the country has been bedeviled by many obstacles. Some of which are

- Politics - failure in the continuity of policy during a change of government
- Unavailability of funds due to heavy dependency on external funding to implement policies
- Inadequate technical expertise to transform policy into implementation
- Inappropriate ICT network infrastructure usually found in the country

Unavailability of policy direction in the way ICT infrastructure should be implemented in tertiary institutions. As a result this project will also seek to unravel why Ghana has not been successful in its quest to sustain the infrastructure needed to ensure connectivity within tertiary institutions.

1.2 Problem Statement /Problem Definition

A policy report published by the ministry of education on ICT in Education indicates that for over ten years, efforts towards the deployment of ICT in Tertiary Education have largely been via provision of computers and establishment of ICT laboratories. This move only forms a small fraction of ICT infrastructure needed by these institutions, hence tertiary institution cannot boast of a stable, accessible and affordable network for the sharing of resource information .

1.3 Research Objectives

The main objectives of this project are to:

1. Review the network infrastructures that are employed in Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC) and University of Ghana (UG)
2. Identify the limitations in the existing network infrastructure in the two institutions.
3. Determine the most appropriate network infrastructure that is cost effective, stable and sustainable to connect these institutions to the national research and educational networks.
4. Determine the most appropriate network infrastructure that is cost effective, stable and sustainable to connect the National Research and Educational Network and the Sub-regional REN
5. Determine the most appropriate network infrastructure that is cost effective, stable and sustainable to connect the REN, Sub-regional REN and the European REN

1.4 Research Question

The study focuses on the question of adopting and designing a cost-effective research and educational network and the scalability of such design to the subregional and international research and educational networks

In an attempt to sufficiently address the above research question, the following leading questions need to be analyzed and well answered;

- What are the infrastructural needs of a REN network?
- Identify and understand the existing RENS and the connectivity issues within Africa, Europe and Asia and how it operates
- Identify the existing infrastructure of countries with RENS
- Analyze the networks infrastructures of UG and GTUC including user requirements, transmission media and limitations of RENS
- Determine the most appropriate network infrastructure that is cost effective, stable and sustainable to connect these institutions to the national research and educational networks.
- Determine the most appropriate network infrastructure that is cost effective, stable and sustainable to connect the National Research and Educational Network and the Sub-regional REN
- Determine the most appropriate network infrastructure that is cost effective, stable and sustainable to connect the REN, Sub-regional REN and the European REN

1.5 Relevance of Studies

The lack of appropriate network infrastructure that allows for easy access to information within our tertiary institutions is a great limitation to the educational system in Ghana. Based on this fact, analyzing the network infrastructure in Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC) and University of Ghana (UG) to support research and educational networks will be the theme for this project. The driving force behind this project is to achieve certain meaningful targets that will meet the network infrastructure needs in the two tertiary educational institutions

The four (4) major motivational factors for this project topic are:

Stability of Network Infrastructure:

The need for stable networks cannot be overemphasized in this era where internet and research networks are the backbone of information super high ways. Unstable networks make access to information difficult and users unwilling to use them. To address the need for a stable network, the underlying infrastructure needs a closer look.

Penetration and Access:

Ghana can boast of 134 tertiary institutions within the country. Majority of these institutions have limited access to connectivity due to their defunct or lack of appropriate infrastructures in place. In the sense of this reality the project would seek to discover answers to address this issue. According to ITU statistics on ICT penetration, digital divide remains a major problem in terms of Internet and especially broadband uptake ¹². While penetration of fixed broadband is growing on an average rate of twelve percent (12%) in developed countries, African stands at a less than half percent ¹³. Mobile market share in Ghana as at May 2010 is 98.3% while fixed telephony on the other hand is still low at 1.7%.¹⁴ Whilst mobile penetration in Ghana this year 2010 is nearly 67% while fixed telephony on the other hand is still as low as 23%. With this trend, this project will among other things recommend how to address this challenge in relation to usage in tertiary education.

Affordability:

The affordability of high-speed telecommunications in Africa is among the highest in the world. This fact has actually kept many Africans off the Internet, according to Christophe Stork of Research ICT Africa, which he conducted on information and communication technology in 19 countries on the continent ¹⁵. Despite the existence of about 22 licensed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the country not many Ghanaian tertiary institutions have access to affordable network services. Cost is one of the biggest factors that limit the advancement and research in ICT development in Ghana but with the right network infrastructures in place, the merits far outweighs the cost.

Standards and Interoperability

The availability of a network infrastructure that can support different applications is essential to the enhancement of research and education and as such, the development of a standard and interoperable network infrastructure is much needed in a developing country such as Ghana

In addition, the researchers are of the view that the results of the study would be of tremendous importance to the following stakeholders:

Government of Ghana:

REN plays an important role in economic development in supporting innovation processes in every country. REN serves as a platform for collaboration between researchers to enhance the economic development of every country.

Educational Institutions:

One of the primary objectives of a modern day educational institution is to be able to broaden their teaching scope through the involvement of other lectures worldwide. REN offers an ideal platform for the enhancement of this objective though distances learning, video conferencing etc.

Students

In this era of global competitiveness, students are expected to graduate with corresponding global knowledge. REN enables students to be able to interact with colleagues and other lecturers worldwide to broaden their scopes in their field of studies to make them equally competitive

1.6 Proposed Chapters for Project

Chapter 1. Introduction

This chapter would focus on background studies of the project. This entails the identifying the problem statement, research objectives, the research question, relevance of studies, the proposed chapters for the project.

Chapter 2. Existing RENS and their Network Infrastructures

Chapter 2 primarily will seek to unveil what research and educational networks are about and also identify their underlying network infrastructures. RENS in Africa, Europe and Asia using Morroco, Denmark and Australia respectively focusing on their infrastructure, policy and organizational setup will be looked at.

Chapter 3 Network infrastructure that supports RENS

This chapter will delve deeper into existing Core Network Technologies and their standards as well as Access Network Technologies and their advantages and disadvantages.

Chapter 4: User Requirements and Analysis of Study

This chapter will deal extensively with the users’ requirements for both Ghana Telecom University College (GTUC) and University of Ghana (UG) to be able to determine the most appropriate access network infrastructures and bandwidth requirement suitable for the development of an appropriate research and educational network.

Chapter 5: Design of an appropriate REN for GTUC and UG

This chapter looks at the design of the most appropriate research and educational networks based on the extensive analysis of questionnaires, literature reviews and interviews involving all stakeholders. The most appropriate organizational structure and ownership options to ensure sustainability, efficacy and effectiveness of the operations of the network will be extensively dealt with. The proposed research and education network design will be based on the analysis of the study of the user requirements of the two universities.

Chapter 6: Conclusion, Recommendations and Limitations of Study

This chapter gives a brief summary what this entire project study revealed, the conclusion for the project and the limitations of the study

CHAPTER 2 EXISTING RENS AND THEIR NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURES

2.0 Overview

This chapter primarily seeks to unveil what research and educational networks are about and also to identify their underlying network technologies and infrastructures.

This chapter also delves into the structure of various existing research and educational networks (REN) in Africa, Europe and Australia using Morocco, Denmark and Australia respectively. The chapter focuses on the infrastructure, policy, organizational structure, and the challenges of deploying RENS

2.1 What are research and educational networks?

To address the highly complex and global challenges facing society, researchers can no longer work in isolation. They must collaborate, connect in novel and highly costeffective ways to help them achieve more together. ¹⁶

In this global village era, the high usage of the internet for learning and dissemination of information are the trends of the day and are increasingly being accepted to replace the traditional way of teaching and learning. Research and Education networks (REN) are a physical high speed telecommunications network designed to promote educational and research purpose.

REN is considered an essential infrastructure for the advancement of research and education and exist in almost every developed country. Without high-speed research network, many research projects would simply be unable to exist and many students would not have access to the best international data and resources. REN contributes to attracting the best international researchers, educators and students as well as helping to enable researchers, wherever they are, to participate in collaborative research projects. REN offers a platform for usage by teachers, students and researchers.

REN creates a common market for research, fostering multinational collaboration. REN is designed to be a breakthrough infrastructure within the research and education communities, providing the power to integrate many research works and teaching methodologies and forcefully driving co-operation. An integral part of REN is that the network supports data transfer at high speeds required for advanced research and education. REN support online collaboration through enabling simultaneous sharing and interaction of data, voice, high quality video and other media across multiple locations. A very good REN also provides essential services such as video conferencing supports, network security, advanced communication and research tools, online resources, teaching and learning. As a result REN plays an important role in economic development in supporting innovation processes.

There is evidence that the availability of cost effective and cutting edge REN network services enables and encourages technological spillover into the commercial sector, which ultimately benefits society as a whole. Conversely, the absence of such facilities hampers such development and can exclude countries from achieving advances that could help their economic development. ¹⁷

Usually REN is set up with point of presence located at a premiere educational and research institutions in major cities of a country with the focus of not just providing connectivity to users, but also to meet the entire needs of the educational and research institutions by hosting and providing relevant information to the users. A major objective of REN is its ability to offer a forum to collaborate, innovate and share knowledge to enhance the development of research.

For these reason, REN is best designed when connected to a core network backbone, with connection to the rest of a country’s educational and research institutions. REN can accommodate the following services;

- Meeting the academic needs of indigenous students, lecturers, scholars, nations, communities, institutions and organizations.
- Improving the development and delivery of education and research works
- Strengthening the sharing of knowledge among individuals and groups
- Helping preserve and protect Indigenous knowledge, Education and Traditions
- Acting as a state-of-art technology to support the education and research works by providing a high-capacity information and communication infrastructure.
- Providing a platform to facilitate research for the implementation of new services and advanced networking technologies through the establishment of experimental test beds.

At the time of their creation many REN were intended to serve a specific set of users such as universities or academy of sciences. Over time however the users have expanded to other users. It is now common for RENs to serve organizations that do not belong to the research and education community.

General all users can be divided in two groups: noncommercial (public) and commercial however there are also users that do not belong to either the research or the education sector, such as libraries, public authorities, ministries, museums, and industry.¹⁸

2.11 Services Provided by REN

RENs provide a number of services to their users. Among the services offered are;

a. Access to a dedicated high- speed physical network

The most obvious and over-riding function of REN is to provide the academic and research community with a dedicated, reliable, high-speed physical telecommunications network and connectivity whiles supporting the education and research agenda.

b. Provision of Internet access

REN is usually responsible for negotiating, on behalf of all participation institutions, affordable pricing for internet access and provisioning this Internet capacity to its members over the physical networks.

c. Provide numerous network services and application such as

- Web hosting for all its members
- Domain Name Services (DNS)
- Network security and security advisory services
- Bandwidth management (e.g. web caching and traffic shaping)
- Network time services
- Large network storage space
- Collocation services
- IP telephony
- Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) services
- Videoconferencing and voice conferencing services

d. Support teaching and learning

The network and services of REN help promote new and innovative way of teaching and learning such distance learning.

e. Supporting advanced research

The network of REN is used to carry out research into “next generation” internet technologies, protocols, services and applications. For example, Internet 2; 25 RENs Abilene network is billed as “a proving ground for high-bandwidth technologies. “25 RENs are also used to provide “test beds” for grid computing and other distributed computing applications that require high bandwidth.

f) Undertake researches

Research into advanced networking concepts and applications are often undertaken through partnership and collaborate with member academic and research community of a REN.

g) Supports linkages with other sectors

Linkages between the academic and research community, industry, government and other international researcher and educational networks are easily promoted using REN

For instance a researcher is easily transferred into advanced networks and application to the commercial sector to benefit society at large.

h) Provision of advisory services.

Centralized advisory services and expertise that would be too expensive for each educational or research institution to procure and develop on its own are provided on REN. Such expertise and services might include bandwidth management and security services such as intrusion detection, incident response and management.

j) Provision of services to the general public

Several specialized services including domain registration services are provided by REN for example SEWITCH in Switzerland manages the .ch and .li domain and Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique manages the mz domain) while RENs run Internet Exchange Points (IXP) in some other countries (e.g. Denmark's UNI-C runs the national IXP)

2.2 What necessitated the formation of REN

The education and research community has special needs that cannot be met by commercial internet and network providers for a number of reasons including the fact that;

- Significant investment is requirement to provide the infrastructure, service and applications needed for advanced research.
- The education and research community does not ordinary has the buying power to pay for its need
- The education and research community is small in size compared to the private business sector and the general public.

Though it is a fact that higher education and research community have demand for very large amounts of information and corresponding bandwidth commercial ISPs are not strongly motivated to reach the level of innovation needed .by the community as spelt out above. This realization necessitated a widely distributed network with some not having adequate bandwidth and yet very expensive to install and maintain.

Many tertiary institution worldwide have had to invest heavily in network infrastructure and often Government have also had to allocate large amounts of money to establish to establish such networks which most Africa Institution could afford. These tertiary institutions operate independently in terms of sharing academic resource using smaller networks with low bandwidth capacity. The maintenance of this existing bandwidth has also been a major problem due to inadequate funding throughout Africa.

As per Africa Tertiary Institution Connectivity Survey Report (2005) it is stated: the average. Africa university has bandwidth capacity equivalent to broadband residential connection available in Europe, pays 50 time more for their bandwidth than their education counterparts in the rest of the world, and fails to monitor, let alone manage, the existing bandwidth. ¹⁹

The establishment of REN therefore is an adaptation of a deliberate strategy of uniting existing Institution to put all their resources together to build a better network infrastructure that can support their research and educational need. Tertiary institution needed to acquire and maintain adequate bandwidth in order to manage a collaborative research, inter-connectivity among existing institution to support collaboration research works and to share teaching materials and research resources.

Another crucial reason that necessitated the formation of REN is that rural learning centers were cut off and did not have same access as urban communities by provided rural users’ opportunities to batter their education and knowledge using distance video and internet research.

Though there exist the argument that some advanced ISPs may be able to offer some REN core service at a price that is lower than that of an established REN, careful account must be taken of the true cost of relying on externally provided services which may not provide the full range of facilities that the research and education community requires. ²⁰

2.3 The Network Components of a REN

The telecommunications network model and how it applies to a specific country is an important consideration to be made when setting up a REN in any country. The layered network model discussed in the InfoDev report on Open Access is informative is worth considering. The model discussed consists of three dimensions: layer, reach and type of customer. In setting up a REN, the dimensions that are very important are the layers and the reach as shown in figure 1 below. ²¹

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 1 - Network Module

The four main levels or geographical domains of interest to setting up a REN are local, access (metropolitan or regional), national and international levels. Networks at various levels are usually interconnected through “points of presence” or PoPs.

- The local network is the internal institutional network commonly called the “campus network” and this one “closest to the end user”.
- The access network is the portion between the institution and a high speed, usually national -wide network (or the “national backbone”. It is also Known as the “last mile”
- The national network or national backbone is the high- speed network linking major towns and cities in a country usually owned and operated by the national or other major telecommunications companies.
- The international network connects the national network to other national networks or to continental or international networks.
- The access and national backbone segment of the network are usually collectively referred to as “national infrastructure”. In Africa, these segments of the telecommunications network are usually of low capacity, unreliable and only available in the major metropolitan areas.

The layers comprise of the passive physical infrastructure, the logical transport and transmission system and the services (applications and content). Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and business contracts determine the interface between layers and are based on typical standardized by technical protocols

2.4 How REN operates

RENs can be modeled in two ways one as a peering network as show in fig

Peering refers to the voluntary interconnection of administratively separate networks for the purpose of exchanging traffic freely between the users of each network for mutual benefit.

Peering provides members with the advanced networking capabilities to reach and effectively collaborate with their colleagues around the world. Exchange points play an important role in providing facilities in key geographic locations where numerous research and educational networks co-locate in order to enable peering and network interconnection.²²

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 2 - REN as a Peering Network

REN can also be seen as an internet service provider as shown in figure 3 below. The research and educational network may also decide to acquire and provide services such as internet to its member institutions without peering with a commercial service provider at a modest cost. This enshrines the REN as a service provider provides a “one stop shop” service for its member institutions

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 3 - REN as an ISP

2.5 Existing RENs

2.5.1 REN in Denmark

The Danish Research Network, UNI-C or Forskningnettet started in 1985 and was created as a state governing body under the Danish Ministry of Education by amalgamating three regional computing centres: RECKU at the University of Copenhagen, NEUCC at the Danish Technical University in Lyngby north of Copenhagen and RECAU at the University of Aarhus.²³

2.5.1.1 Organization

Forskningnettet is led by a Management Committee which defines the strategy, framework and direction lines of Forskningsnettet and refers to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

The Network Secretariat which forms the management committee of Forskningsnettet, deals with the daily management of network operation, services

Network Operation Center

The main responsibility for the daily operation which includes transmission lines,

Routers and administration of IP - addresses as well as operation services of the network is place at the Network Operation Center at UNI-C. Forskningnettet has regional operations centers at the universities in Aalborg, Arhus, Odense and Copenhagen. These centers provide connections in their local areas and at the same time connect clients. UNI-C coordinates the local point of presence (PoP) in the regional operation centers.

2.5.1.2 Infrastructure

Forskningsnettet has its own optical fiber infrastructure with 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps Ethernet connections. These connections ensure that Forskningsnettet can provide researchers, students and teachers with optimum connections for transmission of large amounts of data as well as global cooperation.

The Network Operations Centre (NOC) of Forskningsnettet is situated at the local operator, UNI-C, at the Danish Technical University in Lyngby. This is also where the central node for the traffic within Forskningsnettet is located. A similar node is situated in Ǿrestad. This ensures continuous availability if the Forskningsnettet connection in Lyngby should fail. Lyngby and Ǿrestad connect Forkningsnettet via Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

[...]

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⁸ http://www.nca.org.gh/downloads/regdocs/Ghana_National_Communications_Authority_Act_76 9.pdf

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¹⁴. http://www.nca.org.gh/downloads/regdocs/Ghana_National_Communications_Authority_Act_76 9.pdf

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²² Available from the Internet http://www.internet2.edu/network/peers/#intl-exchange [cited on 23 February 2011 11.16]

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