Month: January 2019

New instance of Filesender – a secure service to share large files with anyone

Posted on by Ajay

SANReN has implemented the latest version of Filesender, a web based application that allows authenticated users to securely and easily send arbitrarily large files to other users.

Below are the guidelines for accessing the service and what values it adds to your day to day operations.

What problem does the service solve?
You need to send a file larger than a couple of megabytes to someone and the e-mail comes back indicating: “attachment too big” or “mailbox too full”, that is where FileSender comes in handy.

How do I use the service?
Upon logging in, you are presented with a user-friendly interface. You can set the file to be available for download for a certain period so that it automatically gets removed when the file reaches its expiry date. You have an option to drag and drop your file when uploading it to the application. You also have an option to get a link to the file after uploading it or send it to a recipient as an e-mail.

The service is integrated with the South African Identity Federation, which provides a pool of institutions you can authenticate from to use the service. If your institution is not registered on SAFIRE as yet, you can login with a social media account if you are from an eligible institution. 

Where do I access the service?

You can access the service at https://filesender.sanren.ac.za

Drop us an e-mail at sysadmin@sanren.ac.za for any queries regarding the service.

SABEN RFP: TVET Colleges Connection Project (TCCP) – closed

Posted on by Ajay

The “TVET Colleges Connection Project (TCCP)” is an ICT infrastructure initiative by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) funded through a National Skills Fund (NSF) grant to connect Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) College campuses to the South African National Research Network (SANReN). The purpose of this project is to solve bandwidth poverty at South Africa’s TVET Colleges by connecting them to the SANReN, thereby enabling them to contribute to meeting the goals of the developmental state.

The DHET has appointed the South African Broadband Education Network (SABEN) to implement the project.

SABEN is a non-profit company that was formed as a collaboration between the Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET) and the SANReN Competency Area (SCA), at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), specifically to connect TVET colleges to SANReN. Initially, SABEN assisted colleges to self-fund their connections to the SANReN.

This SABEN RFP process intends to identify providers to be contracted to:

  • connect the identified sites; and
  • provide three years of connection service.

SABEN will utilise the grant funding to cover the capital expenditures (up-front costs) for the envisaged connections. SABEN will recover the monthly operating costs over the connection service period from the respective TVET Colleges.

There are 12 RFP’s published. They can be accessed at TCCP Connectivity RFP on the SABEN website.