The question 

A question has recently arisen about REANNZ’s attitude to collaboration over getting the physical connection to KAREN. The answer is quite straightforward from our perspective.

The answer

REANNZ would encourage any and all parties; especially those collocated in the same building, to consider sharing the physical assets used to gain connection to KAREN. Organisations could consider sharing routers and the physical fibre connection to the nearest KAREN connection point. Multiple organisations sharing the same physical connection would simply establish a separate VLAN each to the network to maintain their own independence, and accept the joint liabilities/responsibilities for maintenance of the shared components.

In some cases, an organisation may wish to offer a KAREN aggregation service to its (admissible) friends and neighbours such as schools, libraries, other researchers etc. This way, all the connecting parties are able to enjoy better connection economics, although they do all still need to separately join the KAREN community if they are not already members, and pay their own KAREN member fees.
 
It is possible that some tail circuit providers may have rules or restrictions that prevent this from happening. In those situations, organisations have, of course, to abide by their supply agreements, but we would encourage early reviews of these agreements to remove or reduce these types of restrictions, and/or that more favourable consideration is given in tendering situations to providers who do permit sharing, unless the economics clearly don’t make sense.

For more information

Contact Mark Cordy, Operations Manager

04 913 1092, mark.cordy@reannz.co.nz