Call for Proposals

Hosting of AfNOG 2009 / AFRINIC-10 &
AFNOG2010 / AFRINIC-12

Organisations interested in hosting AfNOG 2009 / AfriNIC-10, and AfNOG2010 / AfriNIC-12 events are invited to submit proposals no later than 15th December, 2007. Proposals should be sent via email to host-apply@afnog.org.

Information about AfNOG is available at http://www.afnog.org and information about AfriNIC is available at http://www.afrinic.net.

Several documents relating to the requirements for hosting the event are available below.

Hosting Requirements for AfNOG/AfriNIC Workshop and Meetings

Organisations wishing to host the AfNOG/AfriNIC Workshop and Meetings should be prepared to meet the following requirements:

1. Background Information

The African Network Operators Group (AfNOG) is a forum for the exchange of technical information, and aims to promote discussion of implementation issues that require community cooperation. The goal is for coordination and cooperation among network service providers to ensure the stability of service to end users.

AfriNIC is a non-governmental and not-for-profit membership based organisation. Its main role is to serve Africa region as Regional Internet Registry (RIR), like the four other continents which have their own RIR

The annual joint AfNOG and AfriNIC event includes a two day Boot-camp, a week-long set of workshops, three days of technical tutorials, one day for the AfNOG meeting, a half day for the AfTLD AGM, a half day for AfriNIC BoF and WG, two days for the AfREN meeting, two days for the AfriNIC public Policies meetings, and one day for the INET Africa Conference. A number of these meetings, all but Boot-Camp and workshops) are run in parallel.The venue also needs to be available during the week before the workshop (referred to as "set-up week"), during which instructors lay cables, install equipment, and otherwise prepare for the workshop.

Please refer to the draft agenda below for the dates of meetings and room requirements. Please note that this agenda is not the final and changes will be made as the Event draws nearer.

Please see http://www.afnog.org/ for further information about past AfNOG Conferences, and http://www.ws.afnog.org/ for information about previous workshops.

Please see http://www.afrinic.net for further information about past AfrINIC events and what the agenda looks like.

2. Overview Of Space Requirements For The Event

The following office, classroom and conference space will be required. Later sections of this document give more detailed information about each of the rooms. Please refer to the meeting agenda for a better understanding of the room requirements.

Office-1: One large office for the AfNOG / AfriNIC Secretariat and the staff. This office should be a safe place and have at least two keys available to both organisations. It must be available from the beginning of Set-Up week to the end of the entire event.

Office-2: One medium office for AfriNIC Hostmaster consultation. The office should be big enough to accommodate two Hostmasters and two visitors. It should be near the public meeting areas.

A Registration Area: An open area for participants. registration. The registration area must be spacious enough to accommodate a long table as well as allow registrants to queue for the event.

NOC: One small room for the network operations centre. This must be available from the beginning of Setup week to the end of the entire event.

Classrooms: One medium to large classroom per track. There will be four tracks. These rooms will be required during setup week and during the workshop. The Set-up should be in classroom style and be able to accommodate 30 to 40 people with one computer for every student in some cases and one computer for two students in other cases. It may be acceptable if some of the classrooms are not available for the first few days of setup week. Some classrooms may be re-used for tutorials and side events after the end of the workshop. Most of the classrooms will not be needed during the conference. One of the classrooms will continue to be used as classroom for two to three days for AfriNIC specific training.

Tutorial rooms: Three (3) classrooms for three days of technical tutorials which will be given after the workshop, but before the conference. The tutorials rooms will be used in parallel so all of them should be available at the same tine. We may re-use the workshop classrooms for the tutorials depending on their size and position. We may not need them during the conference.

Conference room: Large conference room to accommodate approximately 250 people. It should be available no later than the evening before the conference begins.

Terminal room: It would be useful to have additional space available for a "terminal room", where about 10 computers would be set up to allow workshop students and conference attendees to access the Internet. This should be available during the tutorials and conference. It would be nice if it could also be available during the workshop, but this would significantly increase the space and equipment requirements.

Working group and BoF meeting rooms: AfriNIC will need three rooms for BoFs and its working groups Meeting for half day. The rooms used for the workshops and/or tutorials can be re-used for this.

3. Shared Infrastructure Requirements

The following infrastructure is shared between all the workshop tracks, and is also used during the conference.

3.1 Office (Secretariat)

The AfNOG / AfriNIC secretariat will require a large office, with the following characteristics:

• desk space for 5 to 10 people;
• Space for visitors, office equipment, and storage (preferably lockable) for items handed out to students (such as books, T-shirts, timetables, tourist maps of the city).
• at least one telephone with the ability to make outgoing international calls and the ability to receive calls;
• access to a fax machine with the ability to send and receive international fax messages;
• The telephone numbers for the office voice and fax lines should be known at least a few days before the beginning of setup week; the lines themselves should be available from the start of setup week.
• a colour PostScript printer;
• Copying facilities: Access to a high-capacity copying machine, or a nearby copy shop that will be open at night. Collating, stapling and duplex printing facilities would be very useful; the most useful of these is collating.
• should be reasonably close to all the classrooms and conference rooms;
• A registration desk near the conference room with access to a room /storage space nearby is required.
• it would be nice if the office could also be reasonably close to the hotel reception and the main conference room.

3.2 A Registration Booth/Area

There should be an open area for participants. registration. The registration must have the following characteristics:

• It has to be in area where registrant queue
• It has to be organised either on a set of table or as booth
• Allow display of the event banner and the banner of partners/sponsors organisations
• To be close enough to the meeting rooms.
• Will be nice if there is the ability to have a phone connected to local PABX to allow communication with the secretariat.
• May have a computer for onsite registration

3.3 Network Operations Centre (NOC)

The NOC is a small room that will be the hub of the workshop and conference network. It should have the following characteristics:

• Must be close to the classrooms and the conference room;
• No smaller than 2m by 2m;
• Multiple electrical outlets;
• Stable power supply, with provision for backup generator/UPS;
• Space for several computers and specialised items of electronic equipment to be installed;
• A PostScript printer;
• A flat working surface for 2 people;
• Air conditioning is essential in view of the amount of equipment that will be used in the NOC;
• There must be provision for network cables to connect the NOC to other rooms (see section on network cabling);
• The Internet connection should preferably be terminated in the NOC.

3.4 Internet Connectivity

• 2Mbps of bandwidth to the Internet. More bandwidth would be nice.
• The Internet connection must not be subjected to any kind of firewalling or address translation (NAT or private address space);
• The workshop will require an IP address allocation of at least a "/22" in size. Workshop instructors can work with the host organisation to fill in the necessary application forms.
• The connectivity and address space should be available from the beginning of setup week.
• It may be useful to have more than one link to the Internet, and to use BGP routing. If anything like this is done, it will need careful planning with the assistance of workshop instructors.

3.5 Network Cabling

The NOC, the office, the classrooms, and the terminal room (if there is one), will need to be connected together in a computer network. Ideally, the conference room will also be included in the network. It may be possible to do this using network cables that are already installed. Failing that, AfNOG will install temporary cables during setup week, and remove them at the end of the event.

4. Workshop Requirements

The workshop is subdivided into several tracks, where each track has approximately 20 students and approximately 5 instructors. The plan for the 2009 & 2010 events is to have four tracks: three in English and one in French.

4.1 Classrooms/Labs

Each workshop track requires one medium to large room with the following characteristics. That implies four such rooms for the entire workshop.

• floor space of approximately 8 x 12 (100 square meters - this is a minimum, larger rooms will do just as well);
• multiple electrical outlets distributed throughout the room, preferably on separate circuits;
• overhead lighting, preferably fluorescent tubes;
• stable power supply, with provision for backup generator/UPS;
• air conditioning is highly essential in view of the amount of equipment and the number of people in each classroom;
• Tables: Each classroom requires 14 or 15 tables for equipment, students, and instructors. 10 of the tables will be used for students (with two students per table), and and the remaining tables will be used for instructors and additional equipment. Each table should be about 2 metres long and 0.8 metres wide, so that it can provide space for two people, one or two PCs (depending on the track), and several other items of equipment. The tables should be stable enough to hold this expensive equipment safely.
• Enough chairs for all the students, instructors, and a few visitors.

4.2 Equipment

High end routing and switching equipment will normally be provided by AfNOG. The host will be required to make provision for:

• A sufficient number of desktop PCs. Guidelines for the number of PC required are as follows:
• Track-E0 (23): one PC per student (max of 20 students);
  two PCs for instructors;
  one PC for presentations/demos.
• Track-E1 (23): one PC per student (max of 20 students);
  two PCs for instructors;
  one PC for presentations/demos.
• Track-E2 (13): one PC for two students (max of 20 students);
  two PCs for instructors;
  one PC for presentations/demos.
• Track-F2 (13): one PC for two students (max of 20 students);
  two PCs for instructors;
  one PC for presentations/demos.
• Workshop Infrastructure (NOC etc): (3) Three PCs.
• Secretariat (2): Two PCs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Provision should also be made for a few spares, because equipment failure is almost inevitable.

• Each PC should have the following minimum specifications:
• CPU: Pentium 300 MHz;
• Memory: 64 MB;
• Hard disk: 4 GB;
• Network interface card: 10baseT or 100baseT ethernet or fast ethernet;
• Serial port: at least one working serial port.
• At least 10 additional network interface cards should be available, so that we can configure a few of the PCs to have two or three network interfaces.
• It's highly desirable for all the PCs to have identical hardware (main board, disk drive, video adapter, network adapter). If this cannot be achieved, then having identical hardware on a track by track basis is acceptable.
• The PCs do not need to have any operating system or other software pre-installed. Instructors will re-format the disks and install whatever operating system and software they require for the workshop. The PC supplier should be prepared to re-format and re-install their own preferred operating system after the end of the event.
• The PC hardware works well with the operating systems chosen by the instructors. In recent years, instructors have chosen to use FreeBSD, and they are likely to choose FreeBSD or some other unix-like operating system in the future.
• PCs should have been tested well in advance;
• Power extension adapters (power strips) with correct local power plugs. We need about one power strip (with 4 to 5 outlets) per one or two PCs; we probably also need 3 to 5 longer power extension cords per track; the exact number depends on many details.
• Sufficient power cords for all the PCs and monitors.
• Power cords for additional equipment provided by AfNOG. This equipment is used all over the world, and is often shipped without any power cords, or with power cords that are inappropriate for the destination country. A little more than one additional power cord per student will be needed.
• Category-5 UTP Ethernet Cable: 1 to 3 boxes (where each box contains approximately 300 metres or 1000 feet of cable). The exact amount depends on the distances between rooms, the availability of pre-installed cables between the rooms, and the availability of ready-made cables in shorter lengths.
• RJ-45 male plugs, for making network cables: Quantity 100 to 300, depending on the availability of ready-made cables.
• Tie wraps (also known as cable ties): Large size (30 cm) quantity 100; Medium size (15 cm) quantity 200; Small size (10 cm) quantity 200.
• Gaffer tape: Approximately one large roll of 5cm-wide gaffer tape per track, for neatly securing cables to the floor. At least one additional roll of gaffer tape if we will have to install temporary network cables to link the various rooms to each other. (In other words, a total of 3 to 5 rolls.) Note that genuine gaffer tape does not leave any sticky residue when it is removed after a temporary installation. Duct tape must not be substituted under any circumstances.
• It is desirable for all the equipment to be available from the start of setup week. If that is not possible, then at least the following must be available no later than 09:00 on the Monday of setup week:
• 8 PCs;
• 5 additional network interface cards;
• 1 printer;
• 10 power strips (with 4 or 5 outlets per strip);
• 1 box of category-5 UTP cable (300 metres);
• 50 RJ-45 male plugs;
• 1 roll of gaffer tape;
• all the cable ties.

4.3 Audio/Visual

Each of the four tracks will require the following audio/visual equipment.

• SVGA Projector, for projecting computer output onto a screen;
• Small public address system with support for at least 2 audio inputs and 4-6 speakers (depends on size/shape of room);
• Lapel or cordless microphone;
• 6' x 6' projection screen with stand;
• Medium size to large white board with stand and white board markers;
• Flip chart with stand and markers.

5. Tutorial Requirements

In most cases, the equipment and facilities used for the workshop can be re-used for the tutorials that take place on the day after the workshop ends.

6. BoFs and Working group meetings

In most of the case the room used for the tutorials will be re-used for the BoF and the Working group meetings with the same Audi-visual equipments.

7. AfNOG Conference and AfriNIC Meeting Requirements

The conference will require a meeting room with sufficient seating capacity and audio-visual equipment, as well as simultaneous translation between the English and French languages.

In most cases, the classrooms used for the workshop cannot be re-used as the conference meeting room, but some of the audio-visual equipment may be re-used.

7.1 Meeting/Conference Room

• Must comfortably seat 200 to 250 people;
• Public Address system;
• Lectern with space to fit a laptop and cabling to the SVGA projector as well as microphone;
• Translation booth;
• Entry, exits and access pathways;
• Ideally air-conditioned, especially in hotter climates;
• It would be nice if the conference room had plenty of electrical outlets, because many of the conference attendees will want to connect their laptop computers;
• We will be providing wireless Internet coverage in the conference room. For this to be possible, the conference room will also have to be included in the network cabling that connects the NOC, office and classrooms.

7.2 Translation Facilities

• Translation booth;
• Translators capable of simultaneous translation of technical discussions in the English and French languages;
• Headsets to cater for 200 to 250 participants.

7.3 Audio/Visual

• SVGA Projector, for projecting computer output onto a screen;
• Public address system of sufficient power to cover entire hall;
• Lapel or cordless microphone (one for speaker);
• Cordless microphone (2-3 for audience);
• Desk microphones for panel and main table (8);
• 6' x 6' projection screen with stand (2 of them may be required).

8. Terminal Room

If a terminal room is provided only after the workshop ends (that is, only during the tutorials and conference), then the space and PCs that were used for one of the workshop classrooms can be re-used for the terminal room. If the terminal room is also provided during the workshop, then it will require a separate room and additional equipment.

The terminal room requires:

• 10 to 20 PCs with Internet connectivity;
• 1 or 2 PostScript printers;
• several tables at which laptop users can obtain electrical power connections and ethernet network connections;
• at least one person on duty at all times the room is open, to assist users and to keep an eye on the equipment.

9. Security

All rooms (i.e. classrooms/labs, NOC and Office) must be lockable. Each room should have two keys available for use by instructors or AfNOG staff. Keys must be available from the beginning of setup week. In view of the value of the specialised equipment, it is desirable for the area to be patrolled by security guards.

10. Accomodation

It is preferred that the accommodation, the classroom facilities for the workshop and tutorials, and the meeting room for the conference, all be provided at the same location.

Hotel capacity must be sufficient to accommodate workshop participants, instructors and staff (a maximum of 130 people). the meeting/conference part of the event a 3-4 stars hotel is requested.

• Instructors and AfNOG staff will have single rooms;
• Workshop participants will share rooms (2 per room); the shared rooms must have separate beds.

The hotel should provide the menu of the lunch and dinner way in advance for discussion and agreement. The menu should have variety of food including special food for vegetarians.

Additional hotel capacity to accommodate conference attendees is essential. The expected total number of staff, workshop participants and conference attendees is expected to be around 200.

It is imperative that a contract be signed with the hotel / conference venue and any supplier well in advance of the start of the event. In some cases the contracts shall be signed between the supplier and the local host representing AfNOG and AfriNIC. The different parties must have a copy of the signed agreement. The contract negotiation should be done in cooperation with AfriNIC and AfNOG meeting coordinators.

11. Travel

The local host will from time to time be required to provide local coordination for travel arrangements for participants. This may involve:

• Providing information regarding travel regulations to the host country, such as health restrictions, recommended vaccines, tips on pre-travel medication;
• Providing information regarding local visa requirements, this may include the facilitation of group visas etc.;
• Coordinating the reservation, booking and issuance of air tickets to AfNOG organisers, instructors and students.
• Arranging the meeting of delegates at airport

12. Local Logistics

The local hosting organisation should also be prepared to:

• Visit hotels or conference centres in the selected city well in advance of the conference and recommend a meeting location to AfNOG & AfriNIC. The names of the locations should be included in the proposal sent as well as the costs.
• Assist AfNOG organisers and AfriNIC staff to consult or visit the hotel and make the final site selection.
• Provide logistical support during the meeting, including staffing for the registration desk, meeting room setup, interaction with hotel staff, etc.
• Handle Internet connectivity to the hotel or conference centre.
• Handle all terminal room operations (if there is a terminal room); obtain equipment, set up and tear down the room, and have staff available to answer attendees questions. Local hosts sometimes rent the needed workstations and routers, or borrow them from a local university or other organisation. Vendors may also help defray terminal room costs installation of Ethernet cabling, power strips, ensuring that the room has adequate power.
• Seek local sponsors for the event; i.e. sending of letters and making follow-ups with the required organisations. The local host should not request for sponsorship without informing the meeting organisers beforehand.
• AfNOG organises Opening Dinner on the Sunday before the Workshop for Workshop Participants, Instructors, Staff, Local Host and local sponsors. We will seek the assistance of the Local Host to identity suitable venue for the event for 100 to 130 people.
• AfriNIC organise a social event the first day of it meeting. The local host will help identify the venue and arrange for the social event for all delegates (100-150). The social event can be sponsored in part or in total by one of the sponsors.
  The social event shall include but not be limited to the following:
  • Welcome Drink
  • Cultural Display
  • Dinner
  • Music and entertainment

13. Financial

The local host is encouraged to provide financial support towards the costs of running the AfNOG workshop. This can be provided in cash or in kind. Besides direct financial assistance, the local host may be expected to provide budgetary figures for:

• Accommodation and facilities;
• Travel and visas;
• Rental of Computer, Audio and Video equipment;
• Local transportation; shuttle hire, vehicle rentals, fuel expenses, etc.

14. Publicity / Public Relations

The local host is also encouraged to provide local publicity for the event and to coordinate among others:

• Invitation of VIPs, such as Government officers and other Dignitaries;
• Press conferences;
• Press Releases;
• Media Kits;
• Advertising in local newspapers and magazines;
• Preparation of banners and posters;
• Printing of T-shirts, caps, pens and other "take away" items.

The local host should inform the meeting organisers well in advance in the event that a VIP will be giving a speech.
The details about the souvenirs must be communicated to the organisers (AfNOG and AfriNIC), at least two months in advance.

15. Commercial Interests

The AfNOG workshop, tutorials, conference and AfriNIC meeting are non-commercial, technical, education, collaboration and community oriented activities. It is therefore expected that the local host will refrain from using the hosting opportunity for commercial purposes. This also applies to supporting/sponsoring vendors.

Any use of the event for advertising or marketing by sponsors must be approved in advance by the AfNOG Administration and AfriNIC management, and must not detract from the non-commercial atmosphere. For example, having a sponsor's logo on pens or writing pads would probably be permitted, while having an exhibition of a sponsor's equipment would probably not be permitted.

Minimum level is however acceptable and can be discussed further.

16. Final Selection of Host

The final selection of the host country/organisation will be made by the AfNOG Convenors and AfriNIC Management, whose decision is final.

Preference will be given to countries where the impact of a local AfNOG workshop and AfriNIC meeting would be greatest.

Preference will also be given to regions other than the immediately previous hosting location.

Strong preference will be given to hosts that are familiar with the AfNOG workshop requirements (through having participated in previous AfNOG/AfriNIC workshop events).

17. Memorandum of Understanding

It is expected that after assessment of the hosting proposal by the AfNOG and AfriNIC Management team, there will be signing of an MoU between AfNOG and the hosting organisations) which clearly outlines the roles and responsibilities of each party.

Samples of the budget and Excel Worksheet are available.