[LINK] Vocational Network proposal without AARnet or IPv6

[Richard Chirgwin]

Tom Worthington wrote:
> The Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace
> Relations has issued a Request for Expression of Interest for a $80M
> Vocational Education Broadband Network (VEN). The RFI is deficient in
> not addressing inter-working with Australia's existing educational
> network (AARnet) and not providing IPv6.
>
> The network was announced by the Prime Minister 22 April 2009, in
> response to the 2020 Summit. The new backbone will interconnect the
> state TAFEs and other vocation training organisations. There is a
> requirements document available for downloading (366 KByte, Ms-word
> format): Document ATM ID DEEWR EOI PRN24590, 18 February 2010:
> <https://www.tenders.gov.au/>.
> Some excerpts at:
> <http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2010/02/vocational-education-broadband-network.html>.
>
>
> NO MENTION OF AARNET
>
> What is not clear from the RFI is why Australia needs a second national
> education network backbone. The Australia Academic and Research Network
> (AARNet) is run by a not-for-profit company to connect Australian
> universities and the CSIRO: <http://www.aarnet.edu.au/about-us.aspx>.
>
> AARNet already connects many vocational educational providers in 
> Australia, were these are provided in conjunction with universities. The 
> RFI document does not explain why this existing network should be 
> duplicated and does not even mention AARnet.
>   
Tom,

Page 20:

"...the VBN solution should ... be capable of peering with other 
educational authorities".

I would think that the rules surrounding writing a tender preclude 
saying "use AARNET", since AARNET might be presumed a potential bidder.

As to "why the existing network should be duplicated". What, exactly, is 
being duplicated? The tender is for what amounts to a Layer 3 network - 
ie, it's not going to duplicate the network infrastructure, but seeking 
competitive tenders for the provision of services.

Since AARNET is (presumably) capable of tendering (at least in theory, I 
don't know if AARNET would be interested in tendering), then it would do 
so as a carrier - in other words, in 'equal' competition to any other 
respondent. So issuing the tender in this way avoids the 
otherwise-inevitable accusation that the government (or rather the 
academic world) is unfairly competing against commercial carriers to 
provide the services.

I can see the point about IPv6, however.

RC
> NO REQUIREMENT FOR IPV6
>
> The RFI document specifies the use of the IPv4 address space. This
> address space is reaching its limits. Other deficiencies with IPv4 have
> been identified, particularly security and IPv6 was developed to address
> this. AARnet supports IPv6 and IPv4. The lack of any mention of IPv6 for 
> the  vocational network appears to be a serious flaw.
>
> LACK OF COORDINATION OF VOCATIONAL AND HIGHER EDUCATION POLICES BY THE
> AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
>
> Data networking is one example of a general lack of coordination of
> resources between vocational and higher education in Australia. The
> Australian Government is funding duplicated programs for e-learning in
> the vocational and university sectors. These separate parallel programs 
> are working on essentially the same requirement and coming up with the 
> same answers. This is a waste of resources.
>
>
>