Cases & Voices

The work of Brazil's national research and education network, RNP, was, during 2019, a good example of how advanced networks can benefit their countries in areas such as Health, Culture, Agriculture and Defense. Over the past year, RNP has provided remote connectivity and collaboration services for research groups in these areas, allowing for the integration and dissemination of knowledge.

Infrastructure benefits national agriculture

The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) has the mission of providing research, development and innovation solutions for the sustainability of national agriculture. One of its great challenges is to integrate and encourage collaboration between its units in Brazil, many in the interior of the country and in rural areas. To support Embrapa, RNP carried out an integrated plan that included high-speed internet access for the decentralized units, as well as the use of cloud computing, training of professionals, R&D actions and implementation of communication and collaboration services.

Throughout 2019, the Brazilian network helped establish the company's Technical Vulnerability Management Process, which resulted in the creation of a platform to manage the vulnerabilities of the organization's technological equipment, proactively improving the levels of information security at Embrapa . Another delivery was support in modeling a cloud service, similar to compute @ RNP, in which RNP put on paper how the service will be assembled, its functionalities and activities carried out by IT teams to comply with the SLA established by the units. All of this aims to improve the institution's service management level.

Embrapa also counted on RNP's partnership in the development of the SEI Contingency Plan, which aims to enable Embrapa to resume activities in the event of any unavailability or SEI performance problem. An incident of this level can paralyze most of the company's activities that require electronic documents to be carried out. The plan provided methods and procedures to be followed to minimize impacts, avoiding possible legal, operational, financial and image problems.

“The partnership between Embrapa and RNP is essential for the functioning of our institution and the advancement of Brazilian research. In addition to the services focused on integration and collaboration that have worked in the last two years, I would like to highlight the joint action in institutional processes related to Information Security and the continuity of Embrapa's mission-critical operations. That in 2020 we can further strengthen this relationship between the two institutions and the entire RNP System ”, highlighted Embrapa's IT manager, Fabiano Mariath.

Integration of Inmetro to RNP

Video collaboration, IP telephony and information security were the main highlights of the National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (Inmetro) partnership with RNP. Throughout 2019, the network made visits to the institute's units in Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Goiás and the Federal District to carry out the diagnosis and understanding of the client's needs. Throughout 2020, RNP will deliver the project for the implantation of the fone @ RNP and the video collaboration rooms.

Connectivity and training for the Ministry of Defense

RNP has the challenge of providing connectivity, services and solutions for the units of the Ministry of Defense (MD). In 2019, three MD units were connected to RNP's network infrastructure: the Escola Superior de Guerra (ESG), the Pandiá Calógeras Institute (IPC) and the Hospital das Forças Armadas (HFA), all located in Brasília (DF). In addition, 21 IT professionals from the ministry undertook training through courses from the Higher School of Networks (ESR), such as the Network and Systems Security and Public Procurement Plan for Goods and Services based on IN 01/2019.

The MD joined two services. One of them was the Federated Academic Community (CAFe), which allows users to access, through a single account and wherever they are, the services of their own institution and those offered by other organizations participating in the federation. The other was the Public Key Infrastructure for Teaching and Research (ICPEdu), a service that enables the issuance of digital certificates and security keys for client institutions. Since joining the service, HFA issued six certificates, generating savings for the agency of R$ 15,000 and ESG issued ten, generating savings of R$ 30,000.