Infrastructure Services

  • CEnet’s IaaS service is a multi-faceted, self-service and network ready IaaS environment offering both On-premise and Cloud hosted options.

    1. On-premise, Hyper Converged Infrastructure hosted within CEnet’s core. Provision and administer resources, with the assistance of CEnet engineers

    2. Cloud, hosted in AWS, GCP or Azure. Enabling members to provision and administer resources, with or without the assistance of CEnet engineers.

    What is included?

    The following functionality is included:

    • Compute, network and storage for Virtual Machines and Virtual Appliances.

    • Utilise Cloud for PaaS, DBaaS, SaaS and DR

    • Monitoring and reporting of Virtual Machines

    • Backup and Recovery of Virtual Machines both on-premise and cloud hosted options

    • Securely separated Virtual Data Centers

    • CEnet Engineers to assist, where required, members to provision compute, network and storage resources

    Users of this service

    CEnet’s IaaS service is utilised by the majority of member Dioceses to:

    • Eliminate CapEx for compute and storage resources.

    • Offload the burden of managing hardware resources.

    • Increase and decrease resources on demand.

    • Extend backup data to Public Cloud offerings.

    • Aggregate demand across CEnet dioceses to reduce cost and increase Return On Investment (ROI)

  • CEnet’s Safer Internet as a Service (SIaaS) solution provides a safe-by-default online experience for staff and students. The service provides controls to limit access to inappropriate content, and improves dioceses cyber security posture by protecting users from internet-based threats such as malware, spyware, botnets and trojans. Internet usage logging and reporting also forms part of the solution.

    CEnet’s SlaaS solution can optionally be extended to provide protection for remote/home internet use.

    What is included?

    The following functionality is included:

    • Filtering of web and non-web internet traffic

    • Advanced Threat Protection including antivirus and antispyware

    • SSL inspection and Web 2.0 application control

    • Bandwidth and advanced firewall control

    • Usage logging and real-time reporting

    • Lightweight multi-tenant DNS based content filter

    • Optional protection for users outside the school network (e.g. home)

    Users of this service

    CEnet’s Safer Internet as a Service solution can be utilised by students, teachers, administrative staff and site visitors alike.

    An optional student wellbeing extension to the service is currently being evaluated via a proof of concept activity. If successful, this extension would provide student internet usage reporting, alerting and wellbeing insights to relevant staff such as classroom teachers and wellbeing coordinators.

    All members receiving CEnet’s SIaaS solution are billed for DNS content filtering and other base service costs based on a per-student model.

    The annual Zscaler license cost is apportioned to each Member in Q1 based on the calculated percentage of total traffic processed by the individual member in the previous calendar year. This usage-based cost allocation is used to accommodate the varying ‘capacity to consume’ bandwidth that exists across CEnet’s membership.

  • CEnet’s Secure Internet Gateway service enables members to access internet content via transit internet carriers, dedicated peering services and on-premises caching appliances. The service also provides managed internet transit firewall and external internet service publishing.

    By utilising private network peering and caches to source low cost data, CEnet has reduced expensive transit internet traffic by up to 89%, delivering significant cost savings to Members.

    What is included?

    The following functionality is included:

    • Resilient transit internet connectivity with DDoS protection

    • Resilient private and dedicated peering services (e.g. Google, Microsoft, Apple, Akamai, Megaport)

    • Resilient private and dedicated on-premises cache servers (Google and Akamai)

    • Managed internet transit firewalls, securing CEnet and member inbound and outbound traffic

    Users of this service

    CEnet’s Secure Internet Gateway service is utilised by students, teachers and administrative staff of members that aggregate WAN connectivity via CEnet, or leverage CEnet’s Web Content Filtering service.

    The costs associated with CEnet’s Secure Internet Gateway service are apportioned based on a relative consumption model.

    Traffic usage statistics are collected at a logical point within CEnet’s core network and split to each member based on utilisation percentage.

  • CEnet’s Enterprise Data Centre (Fundamental) and Co-location (Infrastructure) Services provide hosting for CEnet and member infrastructure in a set of secure multi-tenanted Tier-III, carrier neutral data centre facilities. Hosted workloads include:

    CEnet internet transit core and gateway

    Secure internet connectivity and peering

    Member WAN aggregation

    CEnet on premise Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

    Member rack/infrastructure co-location

    What is included?

    The following functionality is included in CEnet’s Enterprise Data Centre and Co-location service:

    • 42RU 600mm wide x 1070mm deep enclosures

    • Fully diverse A+B power supply

    • High voltage utility supply with N+1 redundancy

    • Climate control

    • Fire protection systems

    • Overhead cable trays and inter-rack cabling

    • Physically secure (caged/locked rack) locations

    Users of this service

    CEnet’s Enterprise Data Centre service hosts essential infrastructure and is utilised by all member dioceses.

    CEnet’s Co-location Service is utilised by a subset of members.

    CEnet’s on premise IaaS capability is also supported by the Enterprise Data Centre service and is utilised by the majority of members in lieu of purchasing and maintaining their own server and storage infrastructure.

    The costs associated with CEnet’s Enterprise Data Centre service are apportioned based on a per student model.

    CEnet’s Co-location service is billed based on the number of rack units or whole racks provided. Power draw limitations also apply.

  • CEnet’s Domain Name Services provide resilient domain name hosting and management solutions for CEnet and member internet domains.

    The Domain Name System (DNS) is a critical component of the delivery of network services for private networks and the internet. CEnet maintains our own resilient DNS servers and a delegated web-based, self-service portal for members. CEnet’s primary DNS servers are supplemented with secondary cloud-based Anycast DNS for increased service availability.

    What is included?

    The following functionality is included:

    • DNS hosting

    • DNS management via member self-service portal

    • Split-horizon DNS (internal/external DNS views)

    • Managed DNS service - upgrades and appliance security managed by CEnet

    • Anycast secondary DNS with global availability

    • DNS Content Filtering service

    Users of this service

    CEnet’s Domain Name Services are utilised by all network users including students, teachers and administrative staff. All CEnet members are encouraged to use CEnet’s DNS servers as their primary delegated name server and upstream DNS provider.

    CEnet’s DNS Content Filtering (DNSCF) service supplements our Domain Name Services to provide filtering of Adult and inappropriate content. This provides and added layer of protection to CEnet’s Web Content Filtering service. .

    The costs associated with CEnet’s Domain Name Services are apportioned based on a per student model.