We have a Terracom card (Operating through RwandaTel) that Bridget left here for use at the hospital. She says that it is paid up for two years, starting on 8/2007. We've started using it as the connection for a separate network in the hospital.

Next steps:

• Join the two cellular connections to feed a single network (see below)
• Ongoing research into additional connectivity options. Melissa's group at Berkeley did some research on this. I've also copied an email from her into HighBandWidthConnections

Currently, the network at the hospital is virtually nonexistent. There is a hub at the Jubilee center sharing a Terracom (cellular) connection (or is it a satellite connection?) with about a dozen PCs and a wireless access point. Over at the hospital, we have a separate network running on Terracom card (the one mentioned above), also with about a dozen pcs and a wireless access point.

Our next project is to network everything together. The first choice is to have the Meraki routers up and running. We can administer the links using the Meraki dashboard. Unfortunately, the link that Melissa installed is currently offline. Here's the current support forum thread. Fortunately, Erik Jerde has written that his team will be bringing replacement equipment.

If this doesn't work, we may be able to hack a stop-gap solution by running cat-5 cable in between the buildings. Bizi and Eric checked the distance, and it could be up to 120m, all in. That would require a repeater in the middle of the strand; something we would prefer to avoid for maintenance and theft reasons. As a stopgap solution, we have created a separate network over at the hospital, using the Terracom card that Global Strategies brought with them. Some discussion of the options is occurring on the Meraki support forum thread, also linked above.

UPDATE: Steve reports that his early 2008 team was able to install a bunch of ethernet in the hospital and the Jubilee center. Five meraki routers are also working, though Steve is suggesting that they are less appropriate for intranet than they are for internet.

Open questions about the network setup (pull all network information into its own page once new setup is complete):

• Is there a firewall in front of the HEAL networks?
• Do the Terracom connections give the hospital a fixed IP address? (More generally, how feasible will remote server administration be?)
• How are addressing and DNS handled?
• Would the hospital benefit from a web proxy cache like squid?

Update from Steve Conrad, June 2008:

The quick version is that we set up the Meraki network and also put together a physical cable 
network that runs from the Jubilee Center to the hospital.  All of the offices in the Jubilee 
center and the administrative offices at the hospital all have access to the network.

We ended up turning off the Meraki routers - because we just want to do intranet, not internet 
to the outside world (at least until we are able to upgrade the internet connection).  The 
Meraki's are designed to get onto the internet, not just create a physical network.  They work 
great, but we need to figure out how to reprogram the Meraki's to create an intranet...

Currently, Lyn and the rest of the office staff do all of their shared billing, inventory, and payments information on local hard drives and pass information around with USB sticks. They would really like a centralized, secure server that they can all access, instead.

Erik Jerde: “I have a new IBM system x series server, brand new and equipped with redundant disk drives and power supplies. With the server I'm planning on providing a samba file share for data sharing”

Judy also mentioned this, on 11/29: “FYI: We received a huge box from IBM (via CPC Mike Dircx) the other day. They'd given a grant of a server, 17” monitor and it's coming in pieces (we have two packages), but one is so big I'm not sure how we're going to get it out. A big crate! I think it'll have to be shipped in a container.”

Update from Steve Conrad, June 2008:

We installed the IBM Linux server and created a file share and print server.  We need more 
disk space if we are going to use the server as a primary data storage unit - as well as a 
good backup system for the server (besides the RAID disks).  And I think we just need some 
technical people to be down there and help the staff figure out how the server can be useful 
to them.  We trained Bizi and Jacques on how to connect to the file share from other computers, 
but I don't know if they understand all of the potential that this gives them.

Erik Jerde: “I may also be able to setup a mail server so that the staff with email can get it from a local server which will download from pop3 sources on the internet making mail access a lot faster than webmail options. IMAP is a possibility as well so that the mail can be stored server-side and backed up. I believe I've found a web based software suite which would allow Pytchen to easily administer users if this functionality was deployed.”

The installation of a Hospital Management System is a large project that has yet to get off the ground. There are multiple approaches to take, depending on how ambitious we want to be, feature-wise. Short-term needs would also be addressed by a very different system than Long-term ones.

A complete accounting of our thoughts on these options is on the HospitalmanagementSystems page. At the moment, it looks like Erik Jerde is proposing to implement the shortest-term solution of putting up a reliable file server for the hospital.

We keep track of good bits of hardware to track down and bring in from abroad, here: OngoingHardwareNeeds

• Pytchen has requested some help with data recovery.
  • Downloaded this: http://www.agilerm.net/download.html (Eric and Pytchen were unsuccessful in retrieving data from his dead HD, using this app.)
• Jo, Lyn, and others often need help with their laptops and personal computers. The most pressing problem is with backups. Currently, they doing occasional burns to DVDs (at best.) They also sometimes need help installing apps, etc.
• Bizi wants some help networking the printers in the Internet Center.
• Fred Kahunde needs updated software for his scanner. His problem was that the old software is producing unsendably large image files. It just needs to be burned to disk and handed to Jacques or Pytchen for installation.
• The PCs over at HEAL are having tons of virus issues. Steve Conrad's team will be bringing AVG and Avast in hopes of fixing the problem.

Staff at the hospital currently include Pytchen, Bizi, and Jacques. Bizi is the most fluent in English (followed by Pytchen.) Bizi also happens to be the medical engineer so has a bunch of other responsibilities. The long range router on the hospital side drops into his office. Pytchen is usually most responsive by email.

* Power: frequent power outages will require UPS systems. Old laptops (with their internal batteries) are good for this reason. When power is running, there are often voltage spikes that will kill power adapters for various equipment.

ICT reports often come in from the field as documents before they are integrated with this wiki. We list these reports below, for reference:

• Network Installation for HEAL Africa Hospital, Paul Bakes (Australian team), September 2008 (to be added to wiki)
• Email report Re: Bakes Report, Paul Bakes (Australian team), September 2008 (to be added to wiki) - Fills in a number of details discused in the Bakes Report, above.
• Email Thread Re: State of ICT in Goma and detailed notes on Meraki routers, Erik Jerde, Melissa Ho, and Eric Nguyen February 2008 (to be added to wiki)