Designing and implementing a National Research and Education Network

This work examines the factors that need to be considered when designing a national research and education network (NREN). It discusses the needs of the research and education community and what makes a NREN unique from other networks. It considers the different options available regarding transmission mediums, - technologies and higher level network protocols, and suggests principles that should be followed to obtain an optimum design. These design principles are then applied to the specific case of designing a 100 Gbps+ NREN for South Africa. The network is currently still under construction with funding from the national government, and preliminary findings regarding the implementation of the network are given.

Autorentext

Sybrand Brink has been active in the field of planning optical fibre and transmission networks since 1997. He was awarded a MSc. Eng (Cum Laude) by the university of Stellenbosch in 2009. He is currently employed by a consultancy firm in Cape Town, where he is the network architect of the City of Cape Town''s broadband optic fibre network.