Browsing by Author "Kashorda, Meoli"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    A Strategy for Developing High-end ICT talent for Emerging African NRENs – The case of KENET
    (2013-11-30) Kashorda, Meoli
    Emerging African National Research and Education build and maintain advanced broadband networks that interconnect universities and research institutes. In order to achieve their mandates, emerging NRENs must attract and retain a critical mass of high-end ICT talent to operate the broadband networks and develop innovative services to the higher education community (Haruta et al 2011). In most cases, the NRENs must rapidly develop a critical mass of networking staff to operate the networks and develop the services in a cost-effective fashion. This paper describes the strategy adopted by the Kenyan research and education network, KENET, to attract, develop and retain the necessary networking professionals that operate the broadband network. The strategy aims to create a pipeline of high-end ICT professionals from a large base of entry-level ICT staff that are recent graduates of electrical engineering, computer science and information systems. This paper concludes that this strategy could be adopted by other African NRENs and higher education institutions to develop the required critical mass of high-end ICT talent.
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    Building a Cyber Security Emergency Response Team (CERT) for the NREN Community – The Case of KENET CERT
    (2015-11) Muia, Peter; Kashorda, Meoli; Aseda, Kennedy; Osure, Ronald; Njau, Martin
    Kenya through the regulator, Communications Authority (CA) has setup a national Cyber Security Emergency Response Team (KE-CIRT). This national CERT in Kenya has several sector CERTs with the Kenya Education Network (KENET) having the mandate of setting up and running the education sector CERT in Kenya (Communications Authority of Kenya, 2015). The purpose of the KENET CERT is to identify threats in the Internet and communicate the same to its community (Kenya Education Network CERT, 2015). It also identifies threats within the community and communicates the same to the rest of the Internet community. Additionally, it provides a mechanism where security incidents can be reported and resolved within the KENET community. Experiences are shared with the community and documented for future reference. The CERT is also responsible for making sure that KENET systems and network are safe from security threats. KENET setup the KENET CERT that is run and operated at KENET by the KENET team. This paper and conference session describes the setup of the KENET CERT, the model of operation and the impact and experiences learned from running an NREN CERT in Kenya.
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    Developing a Virtual Computing Lab for the Kenyan Research Community
    (2017-11) Njau, Martin; Osure, Ronald; Aseda, Kennedy; Kashorda, Meoli
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    Developing Appropriate Research Services for Kenyan Researchers
    (2014-11) Muia, Peter; Osure, Ronald; Kashorda, Meoli
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    ICT Indicators in Higher Education: Towards an E-readiness Assessment Model
    (2011-11-30) Kashorda, Meoli; Waema, Mwololo Timothy
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    Videoconferencing-as-a-Service for African NRENs
    (2015-11) Bristow, Robert; Muia, Peter; Hoy, Geoff; Kashorda, Meoli
    This paper describes recent developments in the capability of Videoconferencing and the associated opportunities for a shared videoconferencing offering for African NRENs. The improvements in inter-African network capacity, taken with the maturing of new approaches to videoconferencing open an opportunity for African NRENs to take advantage of an investment that TENET has made in its videoconferencing platform. TENET, the South African NREN operator, has established infrastructure to support multi-party high quality videoconferencing that brings together room-based conferencing (including H.323/SIP conferencing) with the capability to participate from desktop and laptop computers and from mobile devices. Due to the efficient software based characteristics of the chosen platform (Vidyo), participants are able to enjoy up to HD quality conferencing and content sharing in multi-party conferences. The backend of the Vidyo infrastructure is available as software appliances to run as virtual machines (VMWare). This allows for a geographic distribution of the Vidyo infrastructure that enables maximum efficiency in the use of the SANReN network within South Africa. Following an approach from KENET, the Kenyan NREN organisation, TENET has been able to further leverage the flexibility of the Vidyo platform to enable KENET to offer the capabilities of Vidyo to its Higher Education and Research communities in Kenya This paper and conference session will describe the details of this service and the key capabilities of the platform that allow for a distributed service. The paper and session will also outline the key economic, technological and organisational factors that make Videoconferencing-as-a-Service a compelling offering for African NRENs.