UO Staff Participates in Cape Town Network Operators' Workshop

By Hervey Allen (hervey@nsrc.org)

UO Computing Center staff (Hervey Allen, Joel Jaeggli, Lucy Lynch, and Greg Shepherd) and UO Network Startup Resource Center staff (Steve Huter and Randy Bush) recently joined an international team of instructors to teach workshops and set up network facilities in Cape Town, South Africa. These workshops were timed to coincide with the inaugural meeting of the African Network Operators' Group (AFNOG).

Instructors from Ghana, Togo, Mali, South Africa, England, the U.S., and Holland taught the workshops, which were held last April at the Graduate School of Business for the University of Cape Town. Attendees included operators of existing African Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who are developing and enhancing national internets with regional and international connectivity. The classes addressed the issue of network growth, focusing on scalable network infrastructures and scalable Internet services to prepare for expected future surges in demand.

By encouraging the exchange of ideas and techniques, the AFNOG meetings and workshops helped to increase communication and cooperation among the many African networks. They also gave those of us from the U.S. a better understanding of the challenges some of these network operators face, and their degree of dedication as they continue to build and scale their networks for the future. The workshops and meetings were underwritten with help from the Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC), which is based at the UO and partially funded by the National Science Foundation, and from several companies, including Addison Wesley Longman, Cequrux Technologies, Cisco Systems, Cisco Press, John Wiley & Sons, O'Reilly and Associates, PanAmSat, and USENIX.

The help of these various sponsors, volunteers, and instructors from around Africa, the U.S., and Europe was invaluable. Without the concerted effort and coordinated support of so many individuals, companies, and the NSRC, the workshop and meetings would not have been possible.

To see detailed workshop notes and outlines, see http://www.ws.afnog.org Information about AFNOG is available at http://www.afnog.org, and you can learn more about the work of the NSRC at http://www.nsrc.org