Despite concerns that the 1 December deadline would be too ambitious, the work on the R365 million national backbone network of the South African National Research Network (Sanren) has been completed.
Yesterday, just one day before the expected deadline, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) announced the fibre backbone of the project that will link SA and international research and educational institutions is up and running.
At the beginning of October, even science and technology minister Naledi Pandor had doubts the network would be available in time to begin link-ups for the coming academic year. The CSIR contracted Telkom for the installation of the national backbone network in July 2009.
"The completion of the national backbone network is an important milestone. The network will greatly reduce the cost of bandwidth for all research and higher education institutions in the country,” Pandor says.
The department hopes the completion of the backbone will bring it closer to winning the bid for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). “This milestone will further demonstrate SA's readiness to host the SKA radio telescope, for which the country is currently bidding," says science and technology director-general Dr Phil Mjwara.
The Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) will also be linked to the backbone. This will be exciting news for researchers keen to access IBM's $1.6 million supercomputer donation, the Blue Gene/P.
The Tertiary Education Network, which will manage Sanren, has also acquired international capacity from the undersea cable, Seacom. Currently, the Durban University of Technology is on one full circuit (10Gbps) on the international cable.
The first phase of Sanren will connect 50 higher education and research institutions to the network. In the longer term, Sanren aims to connect all research and higher education institutions in the country.
The backbone will also provide capacity to the Southern African Large Telescope, which will be linked to the CHPC. The data will then be transmitted to international observatories via the connectivity provided by Seacom.
“Unlocking its potential will undoubtedly benefit South Africa's research community as our researchers are now able to engage in meaningful online collaboration with peers locally and abroad," concludes CSIR president and CEO Dr Sibusiso Sibisi.
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