Introduce the project

Africa IXP (Team 4)

Introduce team members

Connectivity in Africa• Fibre optic links are few and expensive

Reliant on Satellite

• High satellite latency = slow speed, high prices• Growth of Internet businesses is inhibited

ISP BISP A

200-900ms

5-20ms

ISP 1

ISP 2

Research & Education Institutions

• Research and Education Institutions in Africa are part of the people

Internet Exchange Points

• Interconnection points of the Internet

• Place where ISPs come to interconnect

• Keep local traffic local

Shortening the Chain

Internet

ISP A ISP B ISP C

IXP

Grow local bandwidth

ISP A ISP B ISP C

NationalGateway

IXP

256k

512k

12

8k

1M

1M 1M

Benefits

• Cut down costs– Up to 15%– 400 Million dollars is spent on local traffic that

is exchanged internationally.

• Add Value

• Improve Quality

• New Business and revenue opportunities

Current Status of IXPs in Africa

• 2 large• 8 small• 4 in progress• 14 out of 53 countries

Overall Goals

• Solution to the current situation with the IXP

• 3 IXPs in 3 countries???

• Solutions for NREN, how can they connect?

Stakeholders

• ISPs

IXP architecture

• Design of IXP– Layer 2 or layer 3 ?– Layer 2 with a router reflector

• Redundancy and load balancing

• Proposed equipment

IXP architecture

ISP A ISP B ISP C

RouteReflector

Server

Switch 1 Switch 2

IXP architecture

• IXP services

– WEB server– Secondary and/or primary DNS– Network statistics– Looking glass– …..– Transit traffic

Resources

•SIDA – Funding of the project

•Cisco – Donation of switches offers training to ISPs

•AFRISPA – Have set up workshops in the countries to help prepare for the IXPs (with assistance from DFID)

•KTH – Use of workrooms, equipment for labs and offer lectures for technical teaching purposes

•Teaching Team & Coaches – Feedback, assistance in project matters

Working Methodology

Project Status / Achievements

● Technical proposal and design of IXPs were done for 3 countries: Burundi, Malawi, Zambia

Training of project members

• BGP training: important topics

• Basic training related to IXP services: ➔ DNS➔ MRTG➔ Looking glass• Presentation training• IXP similation

Convincing ISPs to connect

● Presenting economical benefits which will save expensive International bandwidth

● Showing how IXP will increase the speed of Internet

● Presenting how IXP will influence Internet applications development and open up web hosting opportunities

Policy document

• Objectives of IXP

• Organization and management• Members conditions• Responsibilities

Designed questionnaire for NREN road map

Problems encountered by team

• Inefficiency in communication with local stakeholders

• Hesitation from stakeholders to join the IXP

• Budget (constraints and delays)

• Procurement procedures and shipping

• Dealing with the African business environment:

Problems encountered by team

P: Inefficiency in communication with local stakeholders

- Different geographical location

- Absence of face-to-face communication

• S: use the technologies available

Problems encountered by team

P: Hesitation from stakeholders to join the IXP

• Unawareness of benefits

• Need for a minimum number of members

• Organization of workshops and discussion of benefits

Problems encountered by team

P: Budget Issues

- Constraints on the amount

- Delay in approval of budget proposal

- S: Proposal of different alternatives / Compromises in design

Problems encountered by team

Procurement procedures and shipping

-Length and hard process

-Inability to ship some equipment

-Customs and clearing of equipment

S: Proceed immediately after budget approval / Make use of local participants

Problems encountered by team

Dealing with the African business environment

- Low tolerance for change

- Presence of incumbents

- Size of organizations (very small)

- S: Cope with the cultural differences

• Problems the team encountered– Delay in communication with local

stakeholders.– Budget (Constraints and delays)– Procurement procedures– Shipping– Multicultural interaction

• What we are currently working on

“The next step”

• Implementation phase– Finish procurement– Handle shipping and customs clearing– Deploy IXP and testing– Training for local administrators– Policy document– Prepare road map document for NREN– Conclusion phase

• Documentation• Lessons learned

• Finish procurement– Budget was approved– Compile final list of items– Contact vendors

• Handle shipping and customs clearing– Clearing procedures different for each country– Tax rates different for each country – Tax customs duty and VAT

• Training for local administrators– Made contact with cisco– Cisco proposed a train the trainers workshop

• Deploy IXP and testing– Work with internet service providers– Draw configurations for internet

exchange point– Test configurations– Connect internet service providers

• Policy document– Policy document will outline management of

IXP– Feedback on policy documents for each

country– Translation to French for Burundi

• Prepare road map document for NREN– Document to address available infrastructure – Identify available terrestrial links– Recommend links that can be used

• Documentation– Prepare for each internet exchange point– Services deployed

• Lessons learned– Purchasing procedure takes considerable

time– Budget preparation should start early– Coordination

Questions

• Maybe picture of ourselves?

Thank you for listening

• Bye bye!