OPERATION
ANSP is operated in São Paulo, Brazil, by the staff of NARA (Center for Applications in Advanced Networks), of the Faculty of Medicine, USP, and, in Miami, USA, by the CIARA team (Center for Internet Augmented Research and Assessment) of the Florida International University. Since 2002, the NARA staff have dedicated themselves entirely and exclusively to the activities of planning, projects, management and operation of ANSP. Since 2004, CIARA has dedicated itself to the operation of the ANSP point-of-presence in the U.S.A. and to the execution of several parallel projects, which ensure the access of ANSP and other research and education networks in Latin America and the Caribbean to the principal research and education networks throughout the world.
Due to the characteristics of the network, described in the chapter Physical Network, the operation of ANSP, although complex, can be handled by a skeleton crew, albeit highly qualified and competent. This is the model toward which ANSP has been driving since 2004 and which now allows us to manage the network with a team of only nine employees dedicated full-time to the project at NARA, in São Paulo, and another dozen dedicated on a part-time basis to the CIARA project in Miami (the latter including some interns, through the project funded by the NSF), maintaining the same standard of excellence as the world’s most important research and education networks.
Given the architecture and technology chosen, the operation of ANSP is carried out remotely, with all equipment allocated in the data centers of NAP do Brasil (Barueri - SP) and the NAP of the Americas (Miami - Fl), and in the points of concentration of Unicamp (Campinas - SP), INPE (São José dos Campos - SP) and USP (São Paulo - SP). Teams from NARA and CIARA are responsible for projects, network monitoring and decision making on all aspects of the operation of the ANSP and now also the Kyatera network. The work of transportation, installation, connection and physical maintenance of the equipment at the NAPs of São Paulo and Miami are outsourced in the form of contracted "remote hands" and "expert hands" directly from these companies. In the concentration points at Unicamp, INPE and USP, all the work is carried out in collaboration with the respective teams of these institutions.
Yet in order to respond with maximum speed and efficiency to their participants, ANSP maintains, by means of contracting specialized companies, a call center service that provides care twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
