Center of Study and Research in Network Technology and Operations
The Center of Study and Research in Network Technology and Operations - CEPTRO - is responsible for services and projects that aim to improve the quality of Internet in Brazil, working more specifically with Internet infrastructure. CEPTRO is a department of NIC.br (Brazilian Network Information Center), which is the executive arm of CGI.br (Brazilian Internet Steering Committee).Services and Projects
Among our main services and projects, we can list:PTT Metro (Brazilian Internet Exchange Points)
PTT Metro is composed of Internet Exchange Points in the main Brazilian cities (PTT is the Portuguese acronym for Internet Exchange Point). The project started in 2004 and today we have 12 Internet Exchange Points, with an aggregated traffic peek of more than 30Gbps, and more than 200 participants. The biggest IX is PTT Sao Paulo, with more than 100 members and a traffic peek of 25Gbps. The participation is granted free of charge for all interested Autonomous Systems, except for the connection costs to some of the connection points of a given IX (the participant does not pay for the exchanged traffic). One IX is composed of a central switch, managed by the Brazilian Internet Steering Comittee, and, generally, of several connection points, in different locations in the same region (generally the same city). Usually, these connection points are comercial datacenters, that are connected to the central switch by an unlit optical fiber (provided by the connection point). The Brazilian Internet Steering Comittee provides, installs and administrates all the necessary equipment in these points.
Aggregated Traffic including all Internet Exchange Points of the project:
Structure and Traffic of PTT Metro Sao Paulo, our biggest Internet Exchange Point:
More information at: http://ptt.br (Brazilian Portuguese). You can also contact the PTT Metro team at info@sp.ptt.br.
NTP.br (Brazilian Legal Time over Internet)
This is a project we held together with National Observatory, the Brazilian institution legally responsible for defining the time scale adopted in the country. National Observatory (ON) also contributes with the definition of UTC (Universal Time Coordinated). In this project, we use the time information given by cesium time references from ON to feed public NTP (Network Time Protocol) servers, accessible through Internet. The public servers are: - a.st1.ntp.br,
- c.st1.ntp.br,
- d.st1.ntp.br,
- a.ntp.br,
- b.ntp.br,
- c.ntp.br and
- gps.ntp.br.
We also have a website with information regarding the working of NTP protocol and software, in Portuguese, including configuration videos and tips for a variety of operational systems and some network equipment. The website is: - http://ntp.br (Brazilian Portuguese)
Graphs and statistics of our NTP servers: http://monitor.ntp.br/monitor.php
The National Observatory website: http://pcdsh01.on.br/Principal_Ing.html
You can contact the NTP.br team at ntp@nic.br, or in the channel #ntp.br on FreeNode IRC network.
IPv6.br (IPv6 dissemination in Brazil)
This is the project aimed at the dissemination of IPv6 protocol in Brazil. It consists of some complementary initiatives, such as: a website with technical information about the protocol and the transition; an e-learning package, and a course, held at NIC.br headquarters, provided free of charge to Brazilian Internet Providers. We also provide IPv6 transit free of charge for PTT Sao Paulo members on an experimental basis.
Our IPv6 website: http://ipv6.br
Our e-learning package: http://ipv6.br/curso
Brochure of our regular IPv6 course:
Schematics of the labs used in the course:
Some pictures of the classes: 
Free IPv6 transit: 
Internet Quality Measurements
We have some projects intended at measuring various aspects of the quality of the Internet infrastructure in Brazil. Among them, we participate of RIPE TTM project. This project is composed of points of measurement (computers synchronized by GPS receivers) spread around the world. These probes are capable of measuring delay, jitter, packet loss and other network data. We are responsible for providing points of measurement inside the main Brazilian networks, and these points give us a good perspective of the quality of Brazilian international Internet links. This project is currently in operation.
Another project in this area is SIMET (Traffic Measurement System), which consists of a webpage with a Java applet and servers inside our Internet Exchange Points. The Java applet can measure delay, jitter, TCP and UDP bandwidth, among other network parameters. There are a lot of such tests spread over the Internet, but ours has two important characteristics that bring some advantages. First: the majority of Brazilian Internet providers exchange traffic directly with the network in which SIMET servers are; it is almost the same as to have the test servers inside the provider network, the results are not distorted by foreign networks. Second: alongside with giving the end user the knowledge about the quality of his connection, we collect the data, and it becomes an important tool for the Brazilian Internet Steering Comittee to know the general quality of our national Internet Providers. This project is in a beta stage.
The last project is held together with ANATEL (the local telecommunications regulatory agency), and INMETRO (The National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality). It intends to verify the quality of the major Internet Service Providers in Brazil. It will be accomplished by deploying several "probes" (thin clients running FreeBSD and synchronized by GPS), intended to be installed at residences. These probes can sense unidirectional delay, routes, packet loss, jitter, and other important data. We are deploying the probes, and the results are expected late this year (2010).
This is our experimental "Map of Brazilian Internet Quality", constructed with TTM project data:
The SIMET applet (found at http://simet.ceptro.br):
Our probes for the CCL project:
Zappiens.br
Zappiens.br is a website similar to popular video sites, such as Youtube and Dailymotion, but with the purpose of hosting videos in Portuguese language and with some cultural, historical or educational value. The project intends to provide an option to institutions that already have video collections, or that already produce videos, but do not have means to publish them on the Web. It also works as a portal, or unified search engine, that connects similar projects, such as http://video.rnp.br, http://iptv.usp.br and http://zappiens.pt. The website already hosts an important historical video collection from Agencia Nacional (the "cine jornais" - short duration news shown in movie theaters before the main session - from 1950s to 1980s). CEPTRO is coordinating the technical aspects of this project, and the software is being developed by LARC (Network Laboratory of the Polythecnic School of University of Sao Paulo), in close cooperation with FCCN, from Portugal.
That's an example of an embedded video:
INOC-DBA
The INOC-DBA (Inter-Network Operation Center - Dial By Autonomous System Number) project was created by Packet Clearing House (PCH), with the purpose of providing a tool to facilitate the direct communication between the Network Operation Centers (NOCs) or Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs) of Internet Providers and other Autonomous Systems on the Internet. Brazilian Internet Steering Comittee brought this project to Brazil, creating a semi-independent infrastructure, in 2004. The Brazilian Autonomous Systems are urged to participate in this project, and can receive a free SIP telephone for this purpose, upon request. The list of Brazilian participants can be found here: http://eng.registro.br/cgi-bin/inoc/mostra_inoc_br.cgi?ordena=ASN. More information about PCH project is here: http://www.pch.net/inoc-dba/. You can contact the INOC-DBA Brazilian team at inoc@eng.registro.br.Web Census
This is a project held together with W3C Brazilian office and CETIC (Center of Study on Information and Communication Technologies of NIC.br), with the participation of other institutions, such as the Federal Government and the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Our objectives include gathering and studying the Brazilian Web, defined as the Web composed by the websites which use the ccTLD top level domain ".br". We have some questions to be answered, such as: Where are the Brazilian websites hosted, in Brazil or other countries? Where do we stand in IPv6 deployment at these sites? What is the level of compliance with Internet and Web standards, such as HTML and CSS? How accessible are the government sites (.gov.br)? CEPTRO is in charge of the technical aspects of this project, including the development and operation of the webcrawler and analysis tools. The first results are being expected late this year (2010).
!VoIP Peering
The VOIPix is a VoIP Peering system, which will allow VoIP service providers to interconnect, enabling the direct intercommunication between its users via the Internet. The system is under development at NIC.br and its launch is expected in late 2010.
Contact Information
You can contact us in the following ways:Information about PTT Metro:
info@sp.ptt.br (general information and 24/7 operation)
22548*NOC (for INOC-DBA participants)
Information about INOC-DBA:
inoc@eng.registro.br
Information about NTP.br:
ntp@nic.br
Information about IPv6.br:
ipv6@nic.br
NIC.br Projects Director and CEPTRO General Coordinator:
Milton Kaoru Kashiwakura
mkaoruka@nic.br
22548*MKK
Other contacts:
Antonio M. Moreiras
moreiras@nic.br
22548*AMM
(NTP.br, IPv6.br, Zappiens.br, ENUM and .br Web Census)
Eduardo Ascenço Reis
eascenco@nic.br
22548*EAR
(PTT Metro, INOC-DBA)
Fabricio Tamusiunas
fabricio@nic.br
22548*FAB
(VoIP Peering, OpenSICAST, INOC-DBA, and internal software projects)
Rubens Kuhl
rubensk@nic.br
22548*RKJ
(SIMET, CCL, Quality Measurements)
Correspondence Address:
Av. das Nações Unidas, 11541, 7° and.
04578-000 São Paulo, SP
Brazil
Staff
- Ailton Soares da Rocha
- Anderson Silva
- Antonio Galvão de Rezende Filho
- Antonio Marcos Moreiras
- César Linhares Rocha
- Eduardo Ascenço Reis
- José Eduardo Oliveira
- Fabrício Tamusiunas
- Fatima Aparecida M. de Siqueira
- Heitor de Souza Ganzeli
- Holger Wiehen
- Márcio Tedesco
- Milton Kaoru Kashiwakura
- Rodrigo Regis dos Santos
- Rubens Kuhl