IE Network Solutions is a leading IT Company with 15 years of experience. We have done various projects for governmental, non-governmental, and Multi-National companies in all these years. Let’s have a look at one of the projects we have for the Africa Union Commission.

The African Union Commission (AUC) is the AU’s secretariat and undertakes the day-to-day activities of the Union. It is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The main objectives of the AUC are to promote unity and solidarity among African States; to coordinate and intensify cooperation for development; to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Member States and to promote international cooperation within the framework of the United Nations.

We were awarded the contract for the supply and installation of a firewall for the regional office and access switches for the AU Conference Center on October 15, 2020. We officially started the implementation on October 27, 2020.

The aim of this project was to increase the capacity of the African Union Commission’s (AUC) HQ network by purchasing equipment required for their new conference center and license for security purposes. The project involved the revamping of the African Union Network enhancement-Firewall for the Regional Office and Access Switch for AUCC (Conference Center network) by the replacement of the old ZTE access switches, supporting the network extension with the arrival of new staff, and proceeding to the deployment of network control and monitoring tools.

One of the biggest challenges for the African Union’s MIS department was the IT network infrastructure. The AUC uses a 3-tier network infrastructure with access switches, one distribution switch for each building, and one main core switch for all incoming and outgoing traffic. The enhancements that have been made to improve its performance and reliability were:

• Replacement of old core switch 6500 series;
• Removal of all single points of failure;
• Installation of all new generation firewalls;
• Installation of the distribution switches of ACC;
• Deployment of network monitoring tools: Identity service engine and steal watch

In this project, IE Networks supplied, installed, and completed the implementation and migration of the access switches with the integration with the ISE at the AUC conference center building. This was done in accordance with the contractual agreement and with full client satisfaction. This has successfully solved the problems the client was facing. IE Network has successfully delivered the following project scopes:

1. Supply of the Cisco ASA firewall and supply and installation of Cisco access switches as per the approved design.
2. Migration of the network from the existing infrastructure to the new access switches with minimal downtime.
3. Integration of the access switches with a network access control tool of ISE.
4. Configuration of the access switches for users to authenticate through 802.1x through the Cisco identity services engine.
5. Configuration of the access switches for network devices, access points, and IP phones to be authenticated through the MAB on the Cisco identity services engine.
6. Delivered design, implementation, migration, and As-built documents through the implementation phases. 

We are proud to have worked on the AUC project which took from October 27, 2020, to July 05, 2021, and involved more than ten skilled professionals. Cisco was our partner in supplying the products. Our work for the AUC has helped them to achieve their objectives and we are proud to have been a part of that. We have helped the AUC with various IT projects that have contributed to their success. Our team is proud to be a part of an organization that is making a difference in the lives of people in Africa.