In Brazil, a national effort is helping reshape how people connect with education — not just by upgrading technology, but by making a real difference in the lives of students, teachers, and IT staff.
Conecta Rede (Network of Connectivity) is a transformative program led by RNP, Brazil’s national research and education network, in partnership with the Ministry of Education. It’s helping 41 universities and other institutions across the country modernise their digital infrastructure — but the real story is how that’s empowering people.
Better learning experiences, less downtime
One of the most visible changes is in online learning. With support from RNP, institutions are migrating to the Moodle platform. Among the 13 institutions already in production is the Federal Institute of Pernambuco (IFPE), where Moodle is the foundation for fully online degree programs.
“An interesting thing was the efficiency of the team’s focus on the business. Since the operation was centralized at RNP, this was a big move: delivering the Moodle product without needing to configure the machine, our team is now more efficient, because it only works internally. Scaling the classrooms became easier and the team is much more productive,” says Marco Antônio Araújo, IT director at IFPE.
The improvements are already being felt by students.
“We had it around 85% and today it is above 98%. This has a direct impact on the business (..), it has generated greater quality in the provision of services to our students, reducing downtime, and with all communication being done through the platform. With this evolution, students are much closer to the institution,” he adds.
Securing data, strengthening confidence
At the Mato Grosso Federal Institute (IFMT), a reliable backup system had long been out of reach — until now. Through Conecta Rede, 38 institutions have signed up for a cloud-based backup service that includes personalised consultancy.
“We joined the first installation group, and the process was simple. We were concerned about performance and security and these factors were successfully met. I consider it to be a stable and secure solution. It came to meet a need that we had no way of building, which is to have redundancy for our main backup. RNP’s solution was introduced as an offsite backup, which is the redundancy of the backup in another environment, in this case, in the cloud. Now, our expectation is that, at the same time as it is implemented in other institutions, there will also be an increase in the storage capacity of customers who are already using the solution”, says Rafael Bezerra Scarselli, IT director at IFMT.
Importantly, this wasn’t just a technical deployment — it was a learning process that gave the IFMT team new tools and confidence.
“It was a process of five meetings in 30 days that generated two products: the IFMT Backup Policy and another technical document with standards on how to perform the backup. This was another gain we had,” explains Rafael.
A future-proof foundation for all
With institutions spread across a vast country, a key challenge has been ensuring everyone has access to the same quality of infrastructure. RNP’s national data centers (CNDs) are helping to bridge this gap by offering co-location services — hosting servers from different institutions in a secure, central location.
“The program for federal institutes came as a great opportunity, it opened a series of possibilities for us. It presented a group of services to serve us, but there was a moment in which we were able to think specifically about our demands and what could serve us. Institutions are going through different moments in relation to infrastructure. We have very precarious situations, and we thought together of a solution that would suit us, which is co-location, allowing us to take our infrastructure to this data center, which is where our greatest precariousness lies. It is a solution that, in the long term, will serve many institutions,” says Carla Pires, IT director at the Federal Institute of Sul-Rio-Grandense (IFSul).
By offering institutions access to shared infrastructure with 24/7 monitoring, physical and network security, and scalable services, the program is laying the foundation for long-term savings — and better experiences for the people who rely on it every day.
It’s not the infrastructure that makes the difference — it’s what that infrastructure makes possible.
The text is inspired by the article “Efficiency, predictability and optimization of resources in the digital transformation journey: institutions of the Federal Network are already noticing positive impacts of the Conecta Rede Program” at the RNP website.
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