The Adamastor Trust, a joint venture between the five tertiary education institutions of the Western Cape, has been launched with the aim of promoting quality tertiary education through resource sharing and co-operation.
The Trust also aims to promote the economic development of the Western Cape by means of inter-institutional projects.
In line with the Trust`s launch was the commissioning of a shared virtual private network (VPN) linking Trust partners, the Universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch and the Western Cape, and the Cape and Peninsula Technikons.
This shared network, designed and managed by networking consultant, DNS Networking, is regarded as a model by other tertiary education co-operatives and consortia - both nationally and internationally - and much attention has been focused on the concept and its practical operation, says DNS Group marketing director, Keith Boyd.
The Frame Relay network comprises ten 2Mpbs links to the four main campuses and six satellite campuses to the main hub. The main campus of Peninsula Technikon is linked to its adjoining neighbour, UWC, by means of a fibre-optic cable. An eleventh connection will lead from the hub of the network to the external Uninet line.
The acquisition of the network was prompted by the need for extra bandwidth which would be necessary to carry the soon-to-be-installed shared library information system of the five campuses.
Other services to be carried include all IP and IPX traffic between the institutions. Static routes for both web traffic and FTP traffic have been configured between all sites. News services, directory services, videoconferencing and ERL CD-ROM service will all be provided across the network.
The Adamastor network currently operates in parallel to the Uninet network but the future integration of these two networks will be reassessed shortly.
The Western Cape Schools Network has also been invited to become a node On the Adamastor network.
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