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Effect of internet cable break on Stellenbosch University

Monday, January 20th, 2020

The recent internet speed problems that South Africans have been experiencing has been front page news since mid-January. How has it affected the University community?

The short answer is that in most cases, we don’t see any degradation in network performance at all. How is this possible, one may ask? The answer lies in the redundant design of our international circuits, as implemented and managed by TENET, the service provider for the tertiary education sector. When a particular network circuit is broken for some reason, like the West African cable (WACS) in the current situation, the university traffic is seamlessly re-routed via another circuit, Seacom, running along the East Africa coastline. Obviously, the risk of total network failure is enlarged by the current unavailability of WACS (and SAT3), but up to now our services remained available without a hiccup. This can be seen from the following graphs, which show constant traffic flow for the past week, 100% interface availability of the network, spare capacity available and zero network errors reported.

Other network service providers often don’t have this level of redundancy available, and may be more seriously affected. That is why ISP’s like Axxess, Afrihost and others have been struggling, and why some users might have experienced communication problems at home, or while using other networks other than the campus network. 

When will this situation normalise? The WACS cable on the coast of the Congo is currently being attended to by the cable repair ship and TENET’s estimation is repairs could be completed by 11 February.

For regular updates and information on how the repair process works, follow TENET on Twitter.

Click for larger image

TENET internet usage graphs

 

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Inetkey: the end is near

Wednesday, December 4th, 2019

On Monday, 2nd December 2019, the Council of Stellenbosch University approved the budget for 2020, which introduces a new model to provide the required funding for internet capacity for the entire university. In the past, Inetkey served as gatekeeper to keep track of individual internet usage for staff and students, to facilitate collection of the necessary funds to afford the internet service for the university community.

Will Inetkey disappear completely? Not yet.

Since January, Inetkey no longer collected usage data for billing purposes. In effect, there won’t be any charge per use anymore.

However, Inetkey serves other technical purposes, apart from funding the internet service. User identification is a basic requirement to keep track of who used how much internet, but there are also some security and auditing requirements for which the university need to collect basic information about internet traffic. So, for the time being, Inetkey will still be required to access to the internet, but without any individual charges.

Some historical facts:

Internet cost charge-out used to be common practice at most SA institutions since the 90’s. Bandwidth was a scarce resource, and universities needed to manage usage carefully to avoid service collapse and other negative experiences.

From 2000 onwards, internet bandwidth gradually became more affordable, as can be seen from rate changes since 2001. The university introduced three rates per day, A, B and C, to allow discounts during off-peak times. Eventually, the rates stabilised, and as the costs dropped, the university decided to increase available capacity regularly.

In 2001 you paid R1-50 per MB (megabytes) of internet data. Over the past 18 years this decreased to the current 2c. At the same time our internet capacity increased. In 2008 total capacity was a mere 0.4 Gbps (gigabits per second) — at the moment we’re running at 1.7 Gbps and this could increase next year. 

When will Inetkey really disappear? The remaining technical functionality of Inetkey will be migrated to other mechanisms, such as a new firewall planned to be procured in the first half of 2020. We expect the final burial of Inetkey later in 2020.

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Eduroam Visitor Access (eVA)

Wednesday, November 6th, 2019

eVA (eduroam Visitor Access) is a new service which enables higher education and research institute visitors to access the secure and trusted eduroam Wi-Fi network. As additional identity management tool, eVA is a platform where visitors who only need temporary internet access can be registered in a simple and secure manner. 

What is it? 

eVA provides a mechanism that allows authorised staff at eduroam participating institutions to sponsor a visitor and issue temporary credentials to that person for a defined period. Designated eVA admin can determine who is eligible to sponsor visitors, and how long those visitors may gain access.

How does it work?

If you are interested in using eVA to register your department’s visitors, please log a request on the ICT Partner Portal. To simplify matters, this could typically be the same contact person as for SUNid and only one person per department or division.

Note that your line manager has to approve your request before we can assign you rights. Approval can also be done on the ITC Partner Portal.

What are the benefits?

  •  No other, additional registration, for example SUNid, is necessary to use this service.
  • Ease of use. Manuals and instructions are available online.
  • Visitor rights can be managed and limited.
  • Access expires automatically after the selected set date.
  • Records can be tracked and audited.

More information on eVA.

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Internet outage: Feedback

Friday, October 4th, 2019

Early on Thursday morning we were notified by our internet provider, TENET, that there has been a break in internet connection between UWC and SUN. This caused an internet outage on the entire SU network for most of the morning.

Technicians were immediately dispatched to the site and after investigating, established that the infrastructure has been vandalised and the fibre cable cut. Maintenance then proceeded to replace the damaged equipment and restore connectivity. Unfortunately both primary and secondary links were compromised and also had to repair the backup link.

We apologise for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. During incidents such as these please remember to follow our Twitter feed where we will post regular updates.

 

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High internet costs? Here’s why.

Monday, April 9th, 2018

Occasionally we receive enquiries regarding seemingly high Inetkey costs, especially from students. Usually, the causes are fairly straight-forward and can be easily prevented. 

It’s very difficult to say what is causing or what the source of the traffic is without actually looking at your Inetkey logs. So, to start, before contacting us about your Inetkey usage, first look at your logs on http://www.sun.ac.za/useradm and go to the [View Internet Usage] tool and under “View Type” select “Source” and select USER to refresh the display. If you take note of all the IP addresses and see if they are in fact your devices, you will get a better idea of which device is generating the traffic and at which times.

Keep in mind that Stellenbosch University has numerous times been rated as having the fastest internet in South Africa. Current speed tests show that the download speed is 95.29 MB per second and an upload speed of 58.12 MB per second. Subsequently, you can easily run up a massive Inetkey bill within minutes.

The following are a few potential causes for high Inetkey usage:

  • Windows 10 updates that cannot easily be switched off with traditional means. However, if the device is on the SU network and set up to receive updates from IT’s WSUS server, updates will be downloaded locally and not run via Inetkey.
  • Updates stopping and restarting or not completing. Windows 10 1709 Creative Update is a little under 4Gb.
  • Inetkey being left open on a device that is unattended overnight or during classes.
  • Video streaming from sites not on the firewall exception list. Watching an HD streamed movie during the day and evening can generate 3Gb of data per hour.
  • Using a laptop as a wifi hotspot for a cell phone to save on data costs.
  • Using filesharing protocols like BitTorrent. Remember that uploads and downloads both generate traffic. If you use BitTorrent you are also seeding and will also pay for someone downloading your own files.
  • Syncing files to DropBox.
  • Weak passwords allowing neighbours and friends to share internet connections from adjacent rooms.
  • Passwords being leaked to a friend or partners and then abused at a later stage.
  • Viruses or malware included in BHO that spam and generate traffic. Often compromised e-mail accounts will cause high internet usage, because InetKey and email use the same password.
  • Inetkey accounts being used on multiple devices.

If none of these seems to be causing your high Inetkey usage, you can ask Information Technology to investigate your internet usage (or issues). If you have a query send a complaint within 14 days to helpinfo@sun.ac.za. The cost of an enquiry is R200.00 per enquiry. If an error is found, the administrative fee will not be levied.

[Information supplied by David Wiles]

 

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