eduMEET Africa

How it works

Centrally managed, locally hosted

A federation model that combines local service identity with shared orchestration and distributed media resources — seeded across the WACREN backbone.

Federation model

Local service identity, shared media infrastructure

The African eduMEET Federation separates infrastructure hosting from service orchestration. WACREN seeds the federation with media nodes across its 12-country backbone, and NRENs that join contribute additional server resources. The eduMEET team manages the software layer, installation, updates, and federation-level operation.

Service subscribers can use the federated infrastructure without operating their own media nodes. When users join a meeting, media traffic is assigned to an appropriate node based on geography and current load.

If a node becomes unavailable or reaches capacity, the federation routes participants through other available nodes to preserve service continuity.

WACREN's role

Seeding the federation across 12 countries

WACREN provides the initial media-node layer so the African federation launches with coverage — NRENs and institutions then extend and deepen it.

12
Backbone PoPs
Server hardware procured and deployed across West and Central Africa. Each PoP operates as a media node within the federation from day one.
AC4
AfricaConnect4
The federation sits within the AfricaConnect4 programme (2025–2029), ensuring ongoing investment and European partnership continuity via NORDUnet.
PCSS
European partnership
The eduMEET software team at Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center manages the software layer for both the European and African federations.

Core capabilities

What the federation provides

Distributed media nodes

Media capacity hosted by WACREN PoPs and participating NRENs, used as a shared pool across the federation.

Central orchestration

The eduMEET team at PCSS coordinates routing, software management, and federation-level operation for all African tenants.

Geographic and load-aware routing

Traffic is routed to the nearest available node with spare capacity — keeping latency low for African participants.

Failover

If a node becomes unavailable or saturated, traffic is rerouted through other available nodes without interrupting meetings.

Tenant and domain

Each participating NREN or institution runs a dedicated tenant under their own domain with their own branding.

SSO via eduID.africa

Identity integration uses OpenID Connect, including eduGAIN-based and eduID.africa / BonafID identity providers.

Federation governance

Towards fully autonomous African infrastructure

The African federation launches on shared management infrastructure operated by the eduMEET team at PCSS — the same infrastructure that underpins the European federation. WACREN holds full administrative control over all African tenants, domains, and user management from day one.

WACREN's roadmap includes transitioning to an African-hosted management node, operated independently of the European federation infrastructure. This would make the African federation fully autonomous: the orchestration layer, management node, and all tenant data hosted on African infrastructure under WACREN's operational control.

The current architecture is a deliberate starting point — it lowers operational barriers during the pilot phase and allows the federation to launch and prove itself before taking on the full operational complexity of a self-managed management node.

Architecture phases

Pilot → Autonomous

  • Phase 1 — Pilot: PCSS manages orchestration; WACREN manages African tenants and NRENs; media nodes on WACREN backbone
  • Phase 2 — Autonomous: WACREN operates own management node on African infrastructure; full operational independence from European federation
MOU provision The MOU between WACREN and PCSS will include provisions for migration to self-managed orchestration, covering configuration handover, data portability, and operational transition.

Audience

Designed for the African R&E community

The African eduMEET Federation is built for the West and Central African research and education community, with relevance to any African institution that needs secure, sovereign video collaboration.

  • National Research and Education Networks (NRENs)
  • Universities and research institutions
  • Regional organisations and consortia
  • Public-sector and government bodies
  • Healthcare and telemedicine programmes
  • Cross-border collaboration projects

Next step

Contribute infrastructure to the federation

Provide media-node capacity and run your own trusted video service under your own domain.

Contribute infrastructure View technical requirements