This wiki page documents interesting aspects of the project, in order to give a common understanding of what is expected at the end. The Reboot CAMIX project is a demonstration of why it's useful to share a collaborative mindset across all the stakeholders, as a cohesive community, within the country. The short story started with a routing issue, affecting an AS located in Cameroon, discovered abroad. The disclosure occurred within a public chat room offered by the cmNOG. The need was to have a looking glass, at least into the concerned AS (Autonomous System) to debug the issue. and it appeared that CAMIX missed a LG too. At that point, Nishal offered to assist in deploying that tool for any network operators which would agree; preferably the IXPs within the country. During email exchanges with the management of CAMIX, interesting aspects regarding its governance model and technical infrastructure were disclosed or/and confirmed. A meeting has been conveyed to better understanding the real state of CAMIX. The resolutions of the meeting (held on 20230512) are the foundational base for this project. All parties and individuals involved offer a volunteer based contribution with the common desire to see more local traffic directly exchanged through IXP located within Cameroon's boundaries. Without such a collaborative and voluntary motivation, probably nothing would happen… The “Reboot CAMIX project” is triggered by a voluntary collaborative effort in basic problem solving. The coordination would be exercised together, by individual volunteers from four organizations: CAMIX, PCH, AFRINIC, cmNOG; with the aim to associate their efforts to support CAMIX in its need to standardize its practices in governance, design, operations and administration. The team members offer their time and talent; while CAMIX shall provide the funds that the project may need.

[EN] Documentation “Reboot CAMIX Project” - Coordination of the standardization of IXP CAMIX (2023)

• Name: Reboot CAMIX Project
• Short Name: “ RebootCAMIX ”
• Documentation Periode : 12 Mai to 07 June 2023
• General Objective: Transform the IXP CAMIX into an Effective Hub of Local Traffic Exchanges
• Initiating Organisations: PCH (Packet Clearing House), cmNOG (Cameroonian Network Operators' Group), CAMIX (CAmeroonian Internet eXchange)
• Team Members: Olivier (CAMIX), Stéphane (CAMIX), Wilfried (CAMIX), Maxime (CAMIX), Nishal (PCH), Andrea (PCH), Cedrick (AFRINIC), Sylvain (cmNOG)
• Contacts: <contact at camix dot cm>, <info at cmNOG dot cm>
• Project Wiki Page:
• Targets:
  • CAMIX's members
  • Network operators staffs
  • cmNOG's members
• Direct Beneficiary:
  • CAMIX's members
  • Network operators staffs
  • cmNOG's members
  • Local Internet users
• Partner Organisations: PCH (Packet Clearing House), cmNOG (Cameroonian Network Operators' Group), CAMIX (CAmeroonian Internet eXchange), AFRINIC (African Network Information Center)
• Sources of Funding:
  • CAMIX
  • Fund raising
• Previsional Budget
  • Estimative Global Coast:
    • $ …,…
    • …,… XAF
• Previsional Deadlines:
  • Date Start: 20230501
  • Deadline: 20231215
  • Date Service Available: 20231231
• Project Cycle: One time
• Prefered Software Tools: FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software)
• License of the Project: GNU AGPLv3¹⁾ - Licence Publique Générale Affero GNU (version 3 ou ultérieure)²⁾
• Key Words: IXP, Internet, Critical, infrastructure, Reboot, traffic, local, libre
• …:

The “Reboot CAMIX project” is a voluntary collaborative and coordination effort; which brings together individuals from four organizations : CAMIX, PCH, AFRINIC, cmNOG; with the aim to coordinate their efforts to support CAMIX in its need to standardize its practices in governance, design, operations and administration. The team members offer their time and talent; while CAMIX shall provide the funds that the project may need.

This project offers an opportunity to reboot the IXP CAMIX, which means: (i) to study its structure to know its actual state, (ii) to identify the root causes of the displayed effects in in accordance with its actual state, and (iii) to address the agreed problem through its root causes.

The other sections presents the project in different aspects of its description.

The success of this project would greatly impact the state of the Internet in Cameroon.

This implementation would serve as a showcase/model to other IXPs in a similar state; if it succeeds. Therefore, all the stakeholders of the Internet ecosystem, in the country, would be positively impacted.

Openness and transparency shall guide the way the project is conducted.

In order to be reusable, the project shall be licensed under the most appropriate Free/Libre license.

…

This section presentes objectives the project (RebootCAMIX) want to attain ; from general to specific ones.

“ Transform the IXP CAMIX into an Effective Hub of Local Traffic Exchanges ”

The following specific objectives, if all achieved together, imply that the general objective is, therefore, attained. That's due to a partitioning decomposition approach used to define the specic objectives; based on the general one.

The specific objectives are listed below:

|-SO1. Establish an Open Governance Structure
|-SO2. Standardize the Infrastructure Design
|-SO3. Deploy Value-Added Services and Tools
|-SO4. Build a Local Technical Team of Volunteers to Assist in the IX Operations
|-SO5. Promote a Local Peering Culture\

As it may be the case for any other serious project, managed by human beings, the idea of project “RebootCAMIX” is exposed to risks. Therefore, the following risks have been identified:

|-RI1. Human Resource is not sufficiently available

 ...

|-RI2. The funding is not sufficiently available

...

|-RI3. Lack of understanding regarding available tactics/techniques to efficiently/optimally reduce the cost of Internet bandwidth

...

|-RI4. High cost for data network transport within the country boundaries ³⁾

...

|-RI5. High cost of hosting services in data centers within the country boundaries ⁴⁾

...

|-KR1. At least 80 % of the Governance Structure of CAMIX is Open & Transparent
|-KR2. At least 80 % of CAMIX's Infrastructure is Designed in Conformance to BCOPs ⁵⁾
|-KR3. At least 80 % of the local traffic, between CAMIX's players, passes through a PoP of CAMIX ⁶⁾
|-KR4. At least 05 non-ISP organizations (local banks, eGov, local/ccREN, Universities, etc.) start to peer at CAMIX's PoPs
|-KR5. …
|-KR6. …

|-KI1. Percentage of Openness & Transparency into the Governance Structure of CAMIX
|-KI2. Percentage of Infrastructure Design in Conformance to BCOPs
|-KI3. Percentage of local traffic passing through CAMIX
|-KI4. Number of non-ISP organizations who start to peer at CAMIX
|-KI5. Percentage/Number of
|-KI6. …

On the basis of the project's objectives, a minimum number of activities are needed; in order to build a viable functioning implementation. This section is dedicated to identifying those activities.

The summary list of activities, judged necessary to most of the viable functioning implementations, of the project is as follow:

|-Act1. Brainstorming & Initialisation
|-Act2. Project Conception & Planning
|-Act3. Establishment of Agreements Needed for the Project to Succeed
|-Act4. Fund Raising
|-Act5. Meetings for Coordination
|-Act6. Documentation & Reporting
|-Act7. Governance Structure Redesigning
|-Act8. Governance Structure Changes Implementation
|-Act9. Technical Infrastructure Redesigning
|-Act10. Technical Infrastructure Changes Testing Implementation & Deployment
|-Act11. Value-Added Services and Tools Integration Model Redesigning
|-Act12. Value-Added Services and Tools Testing & Deployment
|-Act13. Organization of Training Sessions
|-Act14. Team Building
|-Act15. Community Building around Promotional Events
|-Act16. Follow-up & Evaluation of the Project
|-Act17. Organization of an Official Open Doors, Public Reporting & Thanks Given Event

The list containing all detailed tasks belonging to activities, of the project, are accessible here.

The data used for identification of resources needed to most functioning implementation of the projet and those related to cost estimations are presented in this section.

An implementation of the project would bring the need for securing the acquisition of some bare metal equipments.

Those information, when available, shall be documented within this section. …

An implementation of the project would bring the need of acquisition of some softwares and any other non material resource.

The project preference regarding software goes on those licensed under a FLOSS ⁷⁾ license.

Those information, when available, shall be documented within this section. …

Human resource is of critical importance when it comes to any resilient implementation of the project.

Apart the team project members, in a strict minimalistic basis, the management of an IXP through an open & transparent governance model needs at least:

• A General Assembly of Members
• A Managing Board of Directors ⁸⁾
• Operational & Technical Team ⁹⁾

The information related to identified needed resources, for a good implementation of the project, are reported in the table below.

On the basis of the list of activities needed for an efficient implementation of the project and on a realistic estimation of the time needed to realize each activity, the chronogram, below, is provided in the guise of estimation tools for deadlines to use during the management of the entire project.

Data needed for an estimative exercise of budgeting needed resources, for any functioning implementation of the project, is presented in the next section.

Based on an estimation of the needed resources for a useful implementation of the project, the table, below, is provided as a cost estimation tool in regard to the approximative cost of each budgetable resource identified.

Please go to Packet Clearing House (PCH) to know more about its various activities around critical Internet infrastructures, such as DNS Anycast Service ¹⁰⁾, DNS hosting service for ccTLD zones ¹¹⁾ and IXPs…

African Network Information Center (AFRINIC) is the RIR (Regional Internet Registry) serving the geographical region which includes Africa and the Indian Sea ¹²⁾.

The cmNOG is a Cameroonian based association, which offers a modest contribution to the sustainable development of network engineering; through the community engagement within the national Internet ecosystem. The association offers a platform for technical information exchange, for capacity building and other public services in the benefit of the technical community (Students, Researchers, Lecturers, Engineers/Technicians & Staffs of network operators; alongside with actors/practitioners of TICs & Telecoms).

The Structure of the cmNOG ¹³⁾ gives an aperçu of the manner the cmNOG works.

The home page of this wiki puts together a set of useful information…