A delegation from Universidade Federal do Ceará received the executive secretary of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations (MCTI) Leônidas de Araújo Medeiros Júnior, on an institutional visit to Campus do Pici Prof. Prisco Bezerra. At the occasion, the facilities of the Information Technology Superintendence (STI) of Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC) and the Point of Presence in Ceará of the National Education and Research Network (RNP) were presented.

In addition to the dean of UFC Cândido Albuquerque, and the vice-dean, Glauco Lobo, the delegation included the pro-dean of International Relations and Institutional Development, Augusto Albuquerque; the Information Technology superintendent, Edgar Marçal; the technical coordinator of RNP Point of Presence in Ceará, Marcos Frota; the Infrastructure and Information Security coordinator of UFC STI, Amarildo Maia Rolim; the director of the Computer Network Division of STI, Woldisney Derarovele.

The visit started at RNP Point of Presence in Ceará, where the delegation was saw the control space and the network machine room, which connects higher education and research institutions, development agencies, cultural institutions, health units and innovation environments and companies across the country.

Guided by the technical coordinator Marcos Frota, the present people were able to check out the amplitude of the network in Ceará, which has Companhia Hidrelétrica do São Francisco (Chesf) and the Government of the State of Ceará as partners. "I joined in 1993. I have been doing the same thing in different ways for 28 years and have seen many changes. For the network to work, we have many partnerships, and I usually say that each one comes with a fruit and leaves with a salad, because everyone involved wins. This made it possible for RNP to make a jump in quality in the last years,” Frota said, he also shared graphs of the use of the academic network in 2020, when it was highly demanded.

Then, the delegation went to the safe room, STI data protection environment. In September 2020, there was investment in high performance equipment in the room, where there was already maximum security physical structure, by means of a public call of MCTI and Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep). The upgrade improved all connectivity and digital communication services, as well as the system stability. "Today, UFC has a community of more than 40 thousand people, that is why it has demanded agile network, with extensive data use, academic systems and cloud storage", Prof.  Edgar Marçal said, who, together with the servants Woldisney Derarovele and Amarildo Rolim, led the group through the safe room.

RNP coverage impressed the secretary and the dean himself. "It was wonderful to have come to see the richness of RNP's work, which is fundamental for the connection of the public institutions and the Northeast region itself", the dean Cândido Albuquerque pointed out.

At the end, Leônidas Medeiros, who is also Air Force Brigadier Major, said that MCTI is very satisfied with the work done by RNP. According to him, the achievements are possible only thanks to the complexity of the network infrastructure at UFC and the support received from the University itself. "RNP is very capillary within the State and interconnected with local and state networks, providing huge progress to the education and research campuses This itself already indicates increased capacity for the development of works within the education area", the secretary said.

Source: UFC/Dean´s office