2013-07-02: DRMFSS Internet Connectivity @ HQ
Date
02 July 2013
Attendees
Tesfaye G/Wolde
Goals
- DRMFSS Internet Connectivity @ HQ
Discussion Items
| Item | Notes |
|---|---|
| Internet connectivity and availability at Ghandi | Currently DRMFSS has access to the internet through two different sources. The first one is through Woreda Net and the second is through a commercial subscription with Ethio Telecom. The Woreda Net provides DRMFSS 4MB of bandwidth while the commercial one is 10MB. It's Tesfaye's recommendation to have CATS run on the commercial one since he believes it is relatively easy to access it from the public internet. In terms of the reliability of connectivity he believes that connectivity is relatively stable and it's only ones or twice a month that connectivity is down (of course this is without considering Ethio Telecom issues with fibre lines coming into the country). The main cause of distributions in connectivity is power outage within DRMFSS. The problem is when there is a power outage the server's battery can only support for a couple of hours and in the meantime if the generator is not up and running the servers will shutdown as the battery runs out. This is more of a problem with the person who is in charge of 'turning the generator on and off' since there is no automated switch installed with the generator |
| Connectivity at Nifasilk | Connectivity at Nifasilk is delivered through Woreda Net and apparently he told me that the connection there is better than the one found at Ghandi. The problem with power is even more problematic there since no generator is installed |
| Telco Support | Support form the ISP (Ethio Telecom) is mostly quick (within 1 or 2 hrs) to fix issues |
| Current Usage | Most users use internet connection primarily for email and googling. DRMFSS currently do not have web applications accessible throughout the organisation over the internet. Even now some of the application that are being developed by the ICT team are used over LAN. It is only the local Intranet and Transport Bidding System (TBS) that are operational over the current DRMFSS LAN |
| Current Setup | Tesfaye currently operates around 13 physical servers with a mix of HP, Dell and IBM brands and Windows 2003 and 2008 server OS installed on them. Some applications are running on Sql Server 2005 while a couple of them use 2008 versions. It is his inclination to go for the latest and greatest versions of both for the OS and DB. Currently there is no plan for server consolidation through virtualization in his data center |
| CATS Installation | When I asked about getting the servers down to Edge office for installation and configuration he told me that it is his preference that the installation and configuration takes place in his data center rather that at Edge office. It is his suggestion that he or his team is present during the installation and configuration of the server(s) so as to make it easy for skill transfer |
| Public IP / Domain | Teafaye confirmed that there is a public IP address to use for drmfss.gov.et but not clear on if there are any for the cats.drmfss.gov.et sub-domain. I reiterated that we will need public IP address for the sub-domain to be available so that we will be able to deploy the application during/after the pilot test. Tesfaye suggested that we keep the cats project.org domain and still use the Amazon instance during the pilot test because he can not be sure if he can get all things ready (IP, servers, connectivity) during the end of July |
| Remote Access | He is also willing to provide remote access to CATS server so that the development team can have easy access to the servers from our office for updates and maintenance until hand-over of the project |
Other Comments
After the discussion he also showed me the data center and I must say that it is one of well designed data centers I've seen in this country. I was surprised to see around four IBM e-Series blade servers which are top-notch and state of the art which are top of the line both in price and specification