Business Connexion (BCX) has won a R100 million tender to install Cisco equipment for the SA National Research Network (Sanren), says Geoff Daniell, a consultant at the Meraka Institute.

Speaking at the 3rd Annual Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) Conference in Cape Town, Daniell said the Sanren network would be operational nationally by the end of 2008. Cisco equipment, such as routers, switches, etc, will be used to link up the network.

Managed by the Meraka Institute, Sanren is a high-speed network that will interconnect research councils, other research institutes within statutory bodies, and government departments and universities. Sanren will connect all these centres at high speed to global research networks via connections to Géant, in Europe, and possibly to Internet2`s Abilene network in the US.

Sanren will run in conjunction with the CHPC to make high-performance computing available to South African research institutions and companies nationally.

The Sanren network will have a capacity of 10GBps and will consist mainly of dark fibre being rolled out across the country to around 25 core sites and about 107 secondary sites.

The nodal core sites are planned to be located in Cape Town (exact location not yet decided), Tshwane (CSIR), Johannesburg (to be co-located with Jinx and the University of the Witwatersrand), and Durban (CSIR).