Capacity building remains of utmost importance to UbuntuNet Alliance. Building on the success of the BGP Zero to Hero Workshop, which took place from 21 to 25 March 2022, a second workshop was held from 18 to 22 July 2022 that was attended by Network Engineers from seven NRENs within Eastern and Southern Africa.
The primary focus of the workshop was techniques used to scale BGP networks. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the routing protocol that enables the exchange of routing information between autonomous systems.
This online training workshop, organized by UbuntuNet Alliance, was of great success as it was attended by twelve NREN engineers. These included engineers from the following NRENs: BERNET, iRENALA, MAREN, MoRENet, RENU, RwEdNet, TERNET. Training presentations and hands-on exercises on BGP Peer Groups, Route Reflectors and Communities were conducted in interactive sessions held throughout the workshop.
This workshop serves as part of the capacity building exercises that UbuntuNet Alliance conducts for its community. Not only does it impart valuable skills that are necessary for the achievement of a vibrant community of NRENs, but its impacts trickle down to the grass root level of student and staff.
Additionally empowering network engineers from within the African continent with such skills is of great value to the continent as a whole. “This training has strengthened the bond between UbuntuNet and the NREN engineering community. I look forward to further engagements in future,” said Victor Guambe, network engineer at the Mozambique Research and Education Network (MoRENet). Christine Uwamwezi, a Network Engineer at the Rwanda Education and Research Network (RwEdNet), thanked UbuntuNet Alliance for organising such an informative workshop.
Details on future workshops and events are available on the UbuntuNet alliance events page (https://events.ubuntunet.net/). Updates for all events are available through Ubuntunet Alliance Twitter (@Ubuntunet) and Facebook page (UbuntuNet Alliance). Please follow us to learn more and stay updated.