Striving for Excellence in ICT for Education
Information & Communication
Technology in Higher Education
Anwar Amjad
Director General (IT)
Higher Education Commission of Pakistan
aamjad@hec.gov.pk, aamjad@pern.edu.pk
ICT Pillars in Higher Education
Pillar I
Technological
Infrastructure
Development
Pillar II
Common
Applications &
Online
Services
Pillar III
Infrastructure
Strengthening
@ HEIs
Enabling Environment @ Higher Education InstitutesPERN
Pillar I – Physical Infrastructure
Data
Center Cloud
Video Conf.
Network Topology
! Fifteen (15) Point-of-Presence
across Pakistan
! Three (03) Core PoPs
! Five (05) Regional Access
PoPs
! Seven (07) Local Access PoPs
! Footprints in forty five (45)
Cities
! 10Gbps metro rings in
Karachi, Lahore & Islamabad
! 5Gbps Commodity Internet
bandwidth
! 1Gbps connectivity to all the
Universities/institutes connected to PERN2
! 155Mbps R&E Link with other
Long-haul Network
Multi-Gigabit Transmission Network! Lease of a single pair of dark optical
fiber
! Lease of optical fiber transmission
equipment based on DWDM
technology
! DWDM Infrastructure
! Length of Leased Fiber Pair 6211.5 Km
! Number of FOADMs 22
! Number of OLAs 25
! SDH Infrastructure
! Terminal Multiplexers 10
! Regenerators 3
! Eliminate dependency for
Interconnectivity of remote universities on public network infrastructure
! Provision of high bandwidth for bulk
research data transfer between
research working groups or grid nodes.
! Setting up of 10Gbps (scalable to 80
Gbps) dedicated access.
! Dedicated bandwidth availability for
far-flung universities to reach the global information highway.
! Bringing research and academic
activities of distant Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) up to the level of their counterparts in the major cities.
PERN @ Inception • [2003 - 2004] PERN 1 • [2005 – 2007] PERN 1.5 • [2007 – 2008] PERN 2 • [2009 – 2012]
PERN Evolution
PERN Growth 2003 2005 2008 Universities/ Institutes 56 54 87 Core Bandwidth 2 Mbps 50 Mbps 155 MbpsLast Mile Bandwidth 64-128 kbps 1-4 Mbps 4-24 Mbps International Bandwidth 8 Mbps 155 Mbps 622 Mbps International Leased Circuit Nil Nil 155 Mbps
PERN2 (2009 - 2012)
Universities/ Institutes/R&E Org. 250+
Core Bandwidth 2x10 Gbps
Last Mile Bandwidth 1 Gbps
International Bandwidth 10 Gbps International Leased Circuit 622 Mbps
R&E Connectivity to TEIN3/
APAN & Internet2
College Network of Pakistan
!
Higher Education Commission, Pakistan and Provincial
Higher Education Departments are putting together the
College Network of Pakistan over PERN.
!
Last mile connectivity to the colleges through fiber optic
media to the nearest PERN PoP. Alternately, universities
which are on PERN2 are being transformed into
Aggregation PoP (A-PoP)
!
Cost structure based on two (02) components
! First one being the One Time Cost (OTC). OTC includes provisioning
of PERN2 Last-mile Infrastructure (Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) and backhauling media, etc.) for the intended site
! Second is the Monthly Recurring Cost (MRC). MRC comprises of
networking and internetworking service packages, especially offered to the colleges by HEC
No. of Cities/Districts 12
KPK Colleges Connectivity through Fiber Connectivity on fiber=51 EXISTING POP A - POP
HEC POP Pesh
OLA/ ADM
Colleges GGDC GBDC GBIC GDBC GDBC GGIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GGDC GBIC GBIC GGDC GBDC GBDC GBDC GBDC GBDC GBDC GGDC GBDC GGIC GGIC GGIC GGIC GBDC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBDC GGIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GGIC GGIC GGIC GGIC GBIC GBDC GGIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GGIC GGIC GGIC GBDC GBIC GGIC GBDC GBIC GGIC GBDC GBIC GBDC GBIC GBDC GBIC GGIC GGIC GBIC GGIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBDC GBIC GBIC GBIC GBDC
Public Colleges of Baluchistan
OLA2 OLA3 R 2 R 1 Ag-PoP Existing PoP OLA R e g
SINDH Colleges Connectivity through Fiber
Connectivity on Fiber = 44 HEC POP(s)
EXISTING POP
Advance Technologies
•
IPv6
•
Up to 1Gig Intranet connectivity
•
MPLS L3 VPN
•
MPLS L2 VPN
•
IPv4 Multicast (local and foreign universities)
•
IPv6 Multicast (local and foreign universities)
•
Dedicated R&E link (PERN directly connected to
Network Monitoring
!
Network Monitoring Software
!
Orion Solarwind (http://nms.hec.gov.pk/)
! Web Access to all HEIs’ Administrators
!
Huawei Datacomm Monitoring System (DMS)
!
Service Communication
!
Trouble ticketing facility to the member institutes
!
Dedicated servers with SAN storage
!
Email notifications of alerts/ alarms of various levels
!
PERN2 public interface
Monitoring of Logical Links
!
Network Monitoring of PERN2 Logical
links
!
.20 interface commodity internet
!.40 interface intranet
!
.10 interface R&D TEIN3Link
!Main services to be monitored
!
PTCL Internet Link terminating at all Regional
Centers
!
TW1 link (Redundant Internet B?W Provider)
terminating at LHR, ISB & KHI
Customer Relationship
Management (CRM)
!
SUPPORT LEVELS
! First Level Support
! NOC Engineers – Remote
support (Immediate response officer)
! Second Level Support
! Senior Network/
DataComm/ Transmission Engineer(s) – On site
support
! Third Level Support
! Vendor level support
(R&D)
! Director/ Project Director
!
Engineers are deputed
at each PERN2 POP
!
Customer Support
! Ticketing System ! http://sc.hec.gov.pk ! http://helpdesk.pern.edu.pk!
24/7 Help Line
! 111-11PERN / 051-9040PERN ! Cell Phone: +92 (333) 5345100!
Complaint can also be
logged through email to
! pern2@hec.gov.pk
IPv6 Research Test-bed
!
Country’s first IPv6 National Research Test-bed
! Dual Stack IPv4/ IPv6 connectivity between the selected
universities/ institutes across the country
!
Test-bed is assumed to provide research facility for
advance research in the field of networking and help
Pakistan for its readiness towards IPv6 transition
! Specialized hardware (i.e. IPv6 enabled routers) having support
of all the advance features/ services of IPv6 have been acquired.
! Selected eleven (11) universities/ institutes, committed to
support the development of IPv6 applications and services, having been provided with the necessary router
! IPv6 Upstream connectivity has been acquired from service
provider (TW1)
! IPv6 prefix has been assigned to all the selected universities
High Energy Physics
! NCP is a partner of CERN in this projectand it is the only LCG node in Pakistan
! There are stringent requirements for
computing at LHC. To exploit the full physics potential of LHC data in
comprehensive manner, NCP required Linux based PC farms, data storage
capacity in 100s of terabyte and excellent network connectivity starting with
minimum of 20MB
! To equipment NCP with excellent network
connectivity PERN2 has dedicated TEIN3-PK link completely.
Telemedicine over PERN
!
From the Operation
Theater facility of Holy
Family Hospital Rawalpindi
! Live surgeries on Advanced
Upper G.I. Laparoscopy.
!
The medical graduates and
Agriculture Field Research
!
Showcasing research and
development activities being
performed. Live from
! Jambar Farm House of
UVAS, HEJ Karachi
! PIEAS Operation Theater
! Khairpur University Botanical
Farm
! Gomal University research
laboratory
! KPK University of
Engineering & Technology, Peshawar.
!
First time in the history of
Pakistan that live and
interactive video sessions
were conducted directly
from the research facilities
Performance Monitoring
!
PerfSONAR server is deployed at four PoP sites
!
Karachi
!Lahore
!Islamabad
!Quetta
!
Bandwidth Test Controller (BWCTL)
! Lookup Service
! One-Way Ping Service (OWAMP)
! PingER Measurement Archive and Regular Tester
! SNMP Measurement Archive
! Reverse Ping (
http://pern.edu.pk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72&Itemid=96)
! Reverse Traceroute (
Bridging the Digital Divide
National Video Conferencing
Network
To create a global e-academia village where maximum utilization of educational resources may be exploited through interactive distance learning opportunities.
Features & Footprints
! Interactive CollaborativeInfrastructure supporting 100 site multi-point connectivity in a single conference
! Online streaming/ content
repository server
! Enhanced access of video
conference setup for remote desktop users through
ConferenceMe and Microsoft Lync2010
! Maintaining record of events
details on HEC SharePoint Portal
! Mobile video conferencing setup
for interactive sessions from the research field and operational facilities 0 5 10 15 20 25 22 16 15 14 6 2 1
Outreaching for Teaching &
Learning
Virtual Education Program
0 50 100 150 200 250 Agriculture and Veterinary Animal Sciences Biological and Medical Sciences Business Administration & Management Engineering & TechnologyPhysical Sciences Social Sciences
Workshop Virtual Debate Training Seminar PhD. Defence Meeting Lecture Interview Conference
Overall Video Conference Utilization
Events Lectures / Presentations Conferences/ Workshops TechnicalSession Meetings Interviews Total Events
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Facilitating HEIs with Green Data Centers
National & Regional Data Centers
! Lahore
! Peshawar
Karachi
!
In year 2010, the first ever Private Cloud in public-sector in
Pakistan
!
Offers both Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a
Service (SaaS).
!
The Private Cloud technology as implemented is primarily
aimed at providing Unified Communication solution, i.e.
! Email services, Lync2010, and SIP soft telephony services
!
Based on distributed architecture spanning over two
Regional Data Centers of HEC in Karachi and Lahore to
serve users in North and South.
!
In addition, the design is worked out in a manner that
supports each other for seamless services with high
availability and disaster recovery capabilities, which remain
transparent to the users in any region.
Thanks!