NRENs Roles and challenges in the developing countries

1. NRENs Roles and challenges in the developing countries Dr. Nguyen Hong Van Director of VinaREN Hanoi, 18 August 2014

2. CONTENTS • Roles and objectives of NRENs • SWOC of NRENs • NRENs challenges • VinaREN activities

3. Roles of NRENs • Research and education networks are dedicated networks connecting the universities, research and education centers, hospitals, libraries, laboratories, also industry, and any other institution that may have research and education activities. • National Research and Education Networks (NREN) is for promotion, communication, collaboration, and knowledge exchange of research and education institution. • NREN is the high performance of computing and communication infrastructure. • The commercial Internet are not viable and sustainable services for the research and educational organization because Internet services providers are only able to provide Mbps bandwidth, while NREN can offer “Gbps” with low cost connectivity for research and education institution

4. Objectives of NRENs • Provide scientific research and education institutions with reliable means of communication in order to ease of cooperation and coordination • Share the academic and research resources, so NRENs play a very important role in the developing countries because they connect theirs research and education institutions to research and education institutions in the world. • Strengthen the notion of partnership and encourage joint scientific research among communities. • Minimize cost of research by using diversified academic and technical resources to be made available for use on the network with no need for duplicating investment. • Using such dedicated networks would uplift efficiency and productivity and would boost the concept of creativity and innovation.

5. NRENs Duties and Applications Duties: • Unified connectivity to all research and education institustions • Consolidated Internet services (option) • Connectivity to regional research networks. Applications: • Access to content, common repositories, and library resources • Video conferencing services and media streaming. • E-learning • Telemedicine • Grid computing and cloud computing • Hydro-meteorological and weather forecasting • E- agriculture • E- science • E- culture

6. NRENs around the world Africa Europe & Central Asia Americas D.R. Congo (Eb@le) KENET (Kenya) MAREN (Malawi) MoRENet (Mozambique) RwEdNet (Rwanda) South Africa (TENET) SUIN (Sudan) RENU (Uganda) ZAMREN (Zambia) Latin America (redCLARA) Argentina (RETINA) Bolivia (ADSIB) Brazil (RNP2/ANSP) Canada (CA*net) Chile (REUNA) Colombia (RENATA) Costa Rica (CR2Net) Ecuador (CEDIA) El Salvador (RAICES) Guatemala (RAGIE) Honduras (UNITEC) Mexico (Red-CUDI) Nicaragua (RENIA) Panama (RedCyT) Paraguay (ARANDU) Peru (RAAP) Uruguay (RAU2) Venezuela (REACCIUN2) Poland (PIONIER) Portugal (RCTS2) Romania (RoEduNet)Russia (RBnet, RUNNET) Slovakia (SANET) Slovenia (ARNES) Spain (RedIRIS) Sweden (SUNET) Switzerland (SWITCH) United Kingdom (JANET) Tajikistan (TARENA) Turkey (ULAKBIM) Uzbekistan (UZSCI) Europe (GEANT2) Armenia (ARENA) Austria (ACOnet) Belgium (BELNET) Croatia (CARNet) Czech Rep. (CESNET) Cyprus (CYNET) Denmark (Forskningsnettet) Estonia (EENet) Finland (Funet) France (Renater) Georgia (GRENA) Germany (G-WIN) Greece (GRNET) Hungary (HUNGARNET) Iceland (RHnet) Ireland (HEAnet) Italy (GARR) Kazakhstan (KAZRENA) Latvia (LATNET) Lithuania (LITNET) Luxembourg (RESTENA) Malta (Univ. Malta) Netherlands (SURFnet) Norway (UNINETT) East Asia & Pacific Asia (APAN) South&East Asia (TEIN4) Australia (AARNET) China (CERNET,CSTNET,NSFCNET) Fiji (USP-SUVA) Hong Kong (HARNET) Indonesia (ITB) Japan (SINET, WIDE, JGN2) Korea (KOREN, KREONET2) Malaysia (MYREN) New Zealand (KAREN) Philippines (PREGINET) Singapore (SingAREN) Taiwan (TANet2, ASNet) Thailand (ThaiREN) Vietnam (VinaREN) Mid-East & N.Africa Algeria (ARN) Egypt (EUN/ENSTINET) Jordan (JUNET) Lebanon (NCSR) Morocco (MARWAN) Palestinian Terr. (PadI2) Qatar (Qatar FN) Syria (HIAST) Tunisia (MRST) U.A.E. (ANKABUT) South Asia India (ERNET) Nepal (NREN) Pakistan (PERN) Sri Lanka (LEARN)

7. SWOC Analysis of NRENs in the developing countries

8. Challenges for NRENs in the developing countries • Leadership commitments • NREN operation and regulation: • The strategy, policies and procedures are the main rules for daily operations NREN • Organization structure and permanent staff for the NRENs • Finance: • NRENs are more dependent to the governmental funds or project based fund • Lack of sustainable fund that it is a threat for the NRENs. • Low quality Infrastructure , not be an owner of national backbone infrastructure • Lack of awareness about NREN • Communication and knowledge sharing between NREN and the researchers • Technology knowledge of the researcher • Lack of strategic planning and long term vision • Lack of skills for technical staffs • Most NRENs focused more in the networking and connection but not to the services

9. VinaREN Infrastructure • VinaREN is the members of Trans-Eurasia Information Network and Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN). • The backbone of VinaREN connects 6 network operation centers (NOC) spread across all regions of the country. • VinaREN currently has more than 60 members, including more than 100 of the research institutes, universities, major hospitals, the information and documentation centers in 11 provinces and cities over the country. • From May 2013, the international bandwidth of VinaREN circuit from Hanoi to Hong Kong has been upgraded to 622 Mbps . • The research and education community in Vietnam can connect with other NRENs in the world via the high speed link to: • share science and technology information; • promote the application activities; • collaborate on research and education

10. E-learning • E-learning has been used by more and more members to promote national and international cooperation programs. • Hanoi National University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) , and Can Tho University have been proactively involved in E-learning. • Project “Asean Cyber University” for Vietnam, Lao, Cambodia, Myanmar. Hub center at HUST

11. Telemedicine • Medical education • Endoscopic surgery • Remote diagnostics

12. Weather Forecasting • Data exchanged over VinaREN is about 90% of the total data that National center for Hydro meteorological forecasting needs for conducting research and forecasts. • Download NWP via VinaREN 100 GB per day from US: (NCEP, NOAA, US-Navy), Korea (KMA), Australia (BoM), China (CMA), Geant (ECMWF) and so on • 20 minutes per session instead of 5 to 6 hours before. • Accuracy of short-term and medium-term weather forecasting has been improved due to much data • Download data (50 years) from Japan for re-analysing via VinaREN, download time is 5-7 days instead of 6 months if using Internet 5 Mbps • VinaREN-based international satellite sensing information network has been created to facilitate access and exchange environmental data sets, satellite images for the weather forecast and climate change.

13. Grid computing • Potential high-performance computing applications: nuclear physics, high energy physics, life science, earth sciences. Earth science against the impacts of climate change, prevent and mitigate damages caused by natural disasters. • VinaREN is survival condition for R&E institutions in Vietnam to conduct the researches on the grid computing. • VinaREN supports VN-Grid’s operation and participation in Pragma. • VinaREN facilitates collaborations of existing high performance computing centers in the country. • Sign MoU with Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, HUST, HNU to support the program “National Grid Initiative”

14. E-Culture • On the occasion of 55th anniversary of Ministry of Science and Technology, and announcement ceremony for “Vietnam Science and Technology Day”, Vietnamresearch and education network (VinaREN) showed the first cyber performance on VinaREN/TEIN4. • Main objective of this Cyber performance in Vietnam is to introduce international collaboration, cultural exchanges among TEIN and APAN members, as well as advanced technologies related to the cyber performance on high speed links of research and education networks which are connected together through TEIN4 infrastructure. • This performance was held at “Science and Technology achievement in Vietnam” exhibition area in the National Convention Center, Hanoi, Vietnam on 18th of May, 2014 with the remote participation of partners from Malaysia and Korea. • The video clip on on Cyber-Performance in Hanoi on 18 May 2014 showed in VTV2 can download at (still available) on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ZWRKe6kpk

15. E-Culture

16. E-Culture

17. Human Resources • Coorporated with HRD of TEIN3 for Training (fellowship of TEIN3) on network technology: Network Management, Network Security, IPv6 and Multicast, Routing bedween networks • Cooperate with InTERLab (AIT, Thailand) and NSRC (Oregon University, U.S.) to organize international training courses on "Campus Network Design and operation" and "Multicast hand-on" for 57 network technicians coming from 9 different countries in December 2011. • Cooperate with InTERLab (AIT, Thailand) and APNIC to organize international training courses on “Routing" for 27 network technicians of VinaREN members in June 2012 at Hanoi. • Hosting TEIN3 internship program with participant from Bhutan, Cambodia in July 2012 • Workshop on “Promote Cloud and applications in the TEIN4 network” in Dec 2012 • Sending VinaREN staff to Malaysia for TEIN3 internship program in July 2012 • Sending VinaREN staff to other countries to improve the knowledge on the network technology

18. International Cooperation Member of APAN, TEIN US: Internet2, NSRC Korea: E-TEIN, ACU Japan: PerfSONAR Project (Performance System On Network ARchitecture) cooperate with NiCT (Nippon Information Technology Institution) , Telemedicine with Kyushu University Hospital E-TEIN KOREN project • SDN/Openflow R&D (KOREN, JP and ASEAN countries) • Open Web IPTV R&D (KOREN, China, Japan & ASEAN) • Medical Tele-Collaboration ( 9 Asian Countries) • Live Surgery, Tele-education, Tele-conference Asean Cyber University project (ACU)

19. Opportunities and challenges • Opportunities: • Decree no 11/ 2014/NĐ-CP on science and technology information activities which facilitate for maintaining and developing VinaREN • Governmental fund for VinaREN operations, VinaREN backbone and international connection • Support of some international organization for training VinaREN staffs • Be the members of TEIN and APAN • Challenges: • The level of using VinaREN at VinaREN members is not high • Marketing for VinaREN is not yet enough • Running cost for NOCs • Lack of network devices to connect campus network with VinaREN • Lack of Information for supporting VinaREN members • Lack of the regulations and documents for maintenance and development • Lack of sharing information between VinaREN and members