1. Status Updates and R&E Activities
Anwar Amjad
Director General (IT)/ Project Director (PERN)
Higher Education Commission
Islamabad – Pakistan

2. Serving as Engine to Socio-Economic
Development of PAKISTAN
Technology to Leap-Frog Quality
Technology for Rapid and
Assurance Sustainable Growth
Research &
Development
Human Resource
Development
Technology Driving the Knowledge Economy

4. The National Research & Education Network
of Pakistan

5.  A project to fulfill the overall vision and
objectives of IT Action Plan of the Government
of Pakistan,
 A dedicated digital communication network
interlinking all public/private sector chartered
universities/ degree awarding institutes.
 Provides integration of data
banks, collaboration for research and
development activities and up-gradation of
teaching and learning skills.
 Connectivity with Other Education and
Research Networks worldwide.

6. Disputed Territory

7. PERN Status (2003 – 10)
Universities/ Institutes 104
Core Bandwidth 155 Mbps – 10 Gbps
Last Mile Bandwidth 4 – 310 Mbps
International Bandwidth 8 Mbps - 6 Gbps
International Leased Circuit 155 Mbps
PERN 2
•[2009 – 2015]
PERN 1.5
•[2007 – 2008]
PERN 1 PERN2 Project (2011 - 2015)
•[2005 – 2007] Universities/ Institutes/R&E Org. 350+
Core Bandwidth 2x10 Gbps
PERN @ Inception Last Mile Bandwidth 1 Gbps
•[2003 - 2004] International Bandwidth 10 Gbps
International Leased Circuit 622 Mbps

8. A multi-gigabit network for the education
and research community of Pakistan

10. AN OVERVIEW

12.  UPGRADATION OF CHANNEL CAPACITY
◦ Channel capacity be upgraded to 40Gbps or 100Gbps
based on data intensive research
 Pure IP OVER DWDM
◦ A Single Multi service provisioning platform or multi
service transport platform to avoid transponder costs
 GMPLS, OPS, OBS
◦ Implementation of these technologies as per demand
from the research and academic community

13. Public Sector Private Sector
Univ. Inst. Campuses Total Univ. Inst. Campuses Total
PERN1 21 3 6 30 1 1 0 2
PERN2 50 4 6 60 12 0 5 17
Total 71 7 12 90 13 1 5 19

14. Linking PERN2 to Internet2 & TEIN3

17.  IPv4 & IPv6 Peering
with TEIN3
 IPv4 multicast Peering
with TEIN3
PERN2 International NREN’s MPLS L3 VPN Connectivity provided to
Connectivity NCP for LHC CERN participation

18. Strengthening HEIs through ICT
Infrastructure

19.  Structured Core Campus
Networking at all
universities/ institutes
 Fiber Optic campus
backbone
 ~10,000% growth in
availability of computers to
the students in HEIs over
past 8 years
 Computers labs for general
use and special purposes
 Indigenous applications
development for business
automation of universities’
processes

20. Network and Information Security over PERN.

21.  Deployment of an End-to-End Network and
Information security solutions from three (3) different
aspects
◦ Internet Gateway Security
◦ PERN Internal IP/MPLS Core Security
◦ Access Site Security

22. Security Implementation Plans
No intrusion/Attacks: Special Check
•International Traffic monitoring
on Inside/Outside Traffic
•Active /Passive Data Monitoring 10 G Stateful Firewalls
•Deep Packet Inspection
•URL Filtering Deep Packet Inspection &
Internet Service Provider
• IPS/IDS Enhance IPS
PE
•Domestic Traffic monitoring (within IP/MPLS)
•Passive Monitoring
•Deep Packet Inspection
•URL Filtering Internet Service Prvider
• IPS/IDS
PE
•Network Forensic tools PE
•IP mapping record for back tracking.
•Internal Logs
•URL Filtering
PE PE
•Host Base Intrusion Prevention System

25.  Operations Facility
◦ Independent Network Connectivity
◦ Phones on the Desk
 Dial in # +92 (51) 9040 PERN (7376)
◦ Office Communicator
◦ UAN – 111 11 PERN
◦ Wall mounted display for PERN2 nodes monitoring
◦ Seating space of Three (03) level support
 Space for Two (2) persons for PERN2 Help desk
 Space for Four (4) persons for 1st level support
 Three offices for Senior Staff
◦ Workstations for all staff and Servers for network
monitoring
◦ Glass partitioned space for PERN2 facilities

26.  Network Monitoring Software
◦ Orion Solarwind
◦ Huawei Datacomm Monitoring System (DMS)
 Service Communication
◦ Trouble ticketing facility to the member institutes
 Dedicated servers with SAN storage
◦ Email notifications of alerts/ alarms of various levels
 PERN2 public interface
◦ http://www.pern.edu.pk/

27.  Outreaching with Infrastructure
◦ College Network of Pakistan (CNP)
(Extending PERN2 to PERN3)
 Extending PERN2 Services to
◦ Teaching Hospital
◦ Public Libraries
◦ Research & Development Organization
◦ K-12 Schools and beyond
 Education Management Plan
◦ Setting up Higher Education Management Information System
at all universities
 Educational Alliance
◦ Microsoft
◦ Oracle
 Learning Tools
◦ Development & Management

28. Envisioning the Extension of PERN2

29. Facilitation to higher education community

30. • Scientific research, • Access to
viz. Grids, international digital
simulation, resources
computation, etc. • Closed loop secure
• Local contents connectivity
hosting
Communication Internet &
Infrastructure Intranet
Digital
Video/ Voice
Resources
• National Digital • Interactive video
Library conferencing
• E-Books • Voice over IP
• Pakistan Research across HEIs
Repository

31. PERN
Video Conference
VOIP
CMS
IT Services Pakistan Research Repository
National Digital Library
Anti-Plagiarism (Turnitin)
Business Intelligence
Software as a Email Service
Service (SaaS) Lync 2010 Service
Specialized databases with customized
Platform as a softwares
Services (PaaS) Microsoft Licenced Softwares available at
ELMS
Virtualized Environment of Servers and
Infrastructure as a Storage
Services (IaaS) MCU Services
Hosted & Manage Server Space Support in National Data
Services (H&MS) Center
Network Design Service (LAN/WAN)
IT Consultancy
IT Trainings
Services Establishing Video Conferencing Facility

32. Digital Resources: Journals, Articles, Books,
Theses, etc.

33. Digital Archives E-Journals
◦ 23,000+ Journals
◦ Major Publishers/
Repositories
 IEEE ACME
 EBSCO Nature
 APS Emerald
 ACS Elsevier
 CUP JSTOR
 Blackwell Synergy

34. Digital Archives E-Books
Scheme
◦ 45,000 books
downloadable &
printable

35. Digital Archives Pakistan Research Repository
◦ 2500+ PhD theses digitized
35

38. Indicators Statistics
Universities/ Institutes provided 61
with this facility
Instructors 1038
Students 2906
Total Submissions 12872
Originality Reports 12718
Plagiarists identified 154
38

39. Distributed Connectivity
Remote Web and National E&R
Content to
Instrument/ email Data
Servers: International
equipment hosting Centers/
Knowledge Research
Access locally NOCs
Repositories Networks

40. Enhancing communication across higher
education community

41. Launche
d in Dec 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Total
2006
Universiti
es 6 12 15 25 17 75
Equipped
Events
14 536 475 1022 1028 3075
organized
Technic
al
Lectures /
Conferen Discussi Meeting Intervie Total
Events Presentati
ces on & s ws Events
ons
Mock
Session
2006 3 3 8 - - 14
2007 151 7 295 63 20 536
2008 65 7 395 92 22 475
2009 58 12 767 152 33 1022
2010 300 54 537 122 15 1028
41
Total 577 83 2002 429 90 3075

43. PERN & EDU.PK
Managed Email And DNS TLD
Web Services
2/13/2012 43

45. Campus Self Service
24/7 access to information and services
Analysis & Reporting
Improve decision making; enhance governmental reporting
Status (Operational at following Universities/ Institutes)
• NWFP University of Engineering & Technology, Peshawar
• Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad
• University of Punjab, Lahore
• Islamia University, Bahawalpur
• Sukkur Instituted of Business Administration, Sukkur
• Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi
• Balochistan University of IT, Engg. & Management Sciences, Quetta
• Institute of Business Administration, Karachi*

46. PERN- Providing necessary infrastructure and
connectivity for collaborative research and activities
2/13/2012 46

47.  EVO Panda Server
◦ Collaborative and Interactive communication
 PingER Monitoring
◦ Network health monitoring
 Bio-Informatics Node
◦ Part of Asia-Pacific Molecular Biology Network (A-IMBN)
program
 Tele-Medicine
◦ Bridging the HealthNet with PERN/PERN2
 High Energy Physics
◦ The largest project on the planet, Large Hadron Collider
(LHC), is going to be operational, providing real data to
the scientists.