- Loadshedding creates massive problems for the South African National Research Network.
- Even institutions which have backup power solutions can be affected by weak points in the network.
- TENET, which operates the network has called on partners to suggest solutions to the loadshedding problems.
South Africans are set to endure a dark festive season as Stage 5 loadshedding continues with no signs of respite on the horizon.
While many businesses and institutions have closed shop already or will in the coming days, loadshedding creates more problems than just power loss. When the power goes out, networks go down and this is true even for specially built networks such as the South African National Research Network (SANReN).
This network connects South African public universities and research institutions to each other and the internet. This is done so that these institutions are able to access the connectivity they need which isn’t offered by commercial providers and infrastructure.
However, because all of these institutions are interconnected, when one of them goes down, it can cause a cascade of problems.
“Often in metropolitan areas the network will run in a ring around the region, connecting campuses of multiple institutions,” explained service support manager at TENET, Maria Mvungi.
While the flow of traffic can be diverted to avoid any problems such as a fibre break or power failure at one institution, when multiple faults arise, this become more difficult. As a result, sites between those that experience faults can be left in the dark.
“In the best case scenario, this kind of isolation lasts only for the two or so hours of load-shedding but sometimes there are municipality power failures resulting in blackouts for several hours more,” adds Mvungi.
Earlier this week Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse requested that Eskom cease loadshedding for three days. This so that the city could tend to “escalating faults and outages post torrential rain in Gauteng”.
Some regions have been left without power for over 50 hours as a result of outages. The utility has yet to respond or provide any communication about the current situation as regards loadshedding to neither the city nor South Africans.
Power cuts also make triaging an outage more difficult. TENET says that knowing whether it’s caused by a fibre break or simple a power outage is especially tough.
“Each time there’s a network outage, we have to try and reach out to institutions to get a sense of what is happening but sometimes we cannot reach colleagues, sometimes it is after hours. It takes up a lot of time just to figure out if we need to send someone out to the site to investigate the break or not,” adds the support manager.
In addition, sensitive network equipment isn’t designed to be constantly switched on and off and as such, power cuts decrease the life span and need for maintenance of this equipment.
There are solutions of course, but they require investment and time to implement.
One solution is redundancy. This would see TENET bypassing problematic sites by running fibre around the site. This requires a technician of course but also fibre capacity. As Mvungi points out, many fibre networks are run by one provider and spare infrastructure is a rare resource. The alternative is a custom-built solution but this can be unaffordable for most.
The service support manager has also proposed using monitoring to more effectively diagnose what is causing a network outage. This would allow the team at TENET to shorten its response time when attending to problems.
As for backup power, while there are some solutions in place, it’s not feasible for the entire network.
“Given the size and scope of the network it is just not feasible or sustainable to put in alternative power solutions for every device,” says Mvungi.
“While the institutions who host nodes on the network infrastructure do have contractual obligations to keep that infrastructure operational, there are also legitimate reasons why some are unable to do so. TENET has done what they can to pull out reserve funds and support such institutions where needed, but the challenge is a large one,” she adds.
As such TENET has called on its partners to come up with suggestions for solutions to the problems it faces.
It may be a stretch – as it requires substantial investment – but perhaps TENET could take a leaf out of Vodacom’s book. The network operator announced earlier this year that it was piloting a project in which it would purchase power from independent energy providers.
TENET may want to watch that pilot closely and explore a similar approach to solve its woes.
