Vanuatu Universal Access Policy Gateway and Server

Vanuatu Universal Access Policy Gateway and Server

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A component of a larger initiative led by the Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regular (TRR) in Vanuatu. It consisted in the design and deployment of purpose built school and rural communities Gateway and Server.

Project Details

Name of assignment or project: Universal Access Policy Gateway and Server Deployment
Year: 2015
Location: Vanuatu
Client: Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regular (TRR), Ministry of Education
Main project features: Develop a purpose built gateway and server for schools and rural communities. A unified product including educational resources, local content creation applications, tools for various user roles such as cloud storage, data collection, student information system, security tools including firewall and content filter.
Positions held: Systems Integrator, Systems Developer,
Activities performed: In collaboration with TRR choose various tools and applications to include in the Gateway and Server for schools and communities, deploy all tools and applications on gateway and server, integrate and test tools and applications, develop a user portal as guide to various tools and applications

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Project Deliverables Summary

This project was a collaboration between Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regular (TRR), Leeming International Consulting and Ahapi IT Solutions a local ICT service provider in Vanuatu. Some of the main deliverables for this project are included below..

School and Rural Communities Gateway and Server was designed to be installed on hardware provided by another company who won that tender (whole projects was broken into components and tendered as such). The gateway and server contained the following applications and tools:

  • A firewall to protect access to the server and network resources from malicious attacks
  • A content filter service to enable blocking access to unwanted website (e.g. violent, gambling)
  • A digital library of curated content of learning resources
  • Tools to create local content such as Blogs (Wordpress) and Knowledge Bases (Wikimedia)
  • A local private cloud storage
  • File server
  • Data collection and analysis tool (OpenDataKit)
  • A Student Information System
  • Traffic and usage monitoring and reporting tool
  • A captive portal (aka Hotspot) to manage access
  • A user portal to provide guidance to users with easy access to all applications and tools

Project Activities Summary

Much of the design and deployment work was done through remote collaboration. A prototype Gateway and Server was developed and made available online for stakeholder inputs. Below is a screenshot of the home page portal.

Then during the workshop event in Vanuatu the servers provided by another supplier where submitted to us for deployment on 21 units. We setup a small support area at the local ICT Service provider's premise. Yvan, an invaluable local ICT officer is shown setting up the support area as advised by our technical adviser.

The actual hardware provided by another supplier is shown below. It low power fanless small form PC with aluminum casing that will not easily rust. It's not the best hardware for remote communities in the jungle but for the price it is hard to match such computing specs and therefore a decent choice for a pilot project.