Report on the "NREN creation ('flying') workshop" The 'flying' workshop took place in July 2002 and was sponsored by Open Society Institute. The NATO Science Program, with which CEENet has a lasting partnership, has developed an Internet infrastructure project, called the Silk initiative, to support Central Asia and the Caucasus. All of the OSI foundations in the regions, having in mind that the long range goals of Silk coincide with their goals, participate in this project. NATO is providing the initial funding, some political support, and a major stimulus to get things started. However, NATO has set 3 criteria before they will implement Silk in any of the countries. The criteria are partly in response to discussions with OSI as to how Silk could promote long term solutions for education/civic connectivity problems in the region. Before NATO implements Silk in any of the countries: a. The country should have a registered national research and education network (NREN) b. The NREN needs to get a satellite license c. The NREN needs to have a governance structure, cost-sharing plan and long term development strategy. Of these three, the second is the easiest. The first and third requirements are quite a bit tougher. Academic communities are now working to develop and register NRENs (the NRENs are already registered in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and work is underway in Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan). OSI and CEENet are interested in developing a training program for the 8 NRENs. The whole project includes developing an NREN Handbook (this project has just been done by CEENet) and providing training and exposure to working NRENs in Central Europe and the NIS (present workshop). A short trip to the NRENs in Prague (CESNet), Warsaw (NASK), and Tartu (EENet) has given the Central Asian/Caucasus NREN leaders a deep knowledge of the issues they need to be aware of, such as: - governance, board structure and development - licensing - cost-sharing, funding mechanism, accountability and transparency - strategic partnerships with ministries of education, major ISPs. The workshop had the the form of several lectures, followed by in-situ visits and panel discussions in 3 countries, where successful NRENs are operating since several years. These 3 countries have been chosen to give a variety of possible funding models: from half-commercial (NASK) and its less-commercial, sometimes competitor, (POL34) in Poland, via hybrid commercial-association model of CESNET in Czech Republic to fully government funded EENet in Estonia. The countries were visited in order Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia, mainly due to travel cost effectiveness reasons. From each of the 7 countries (unfortunately participants from Turkmenistan were not able to join, due to internal visa problems), which are in the process of NREN creation (AM, AZ, GE, KG, KZ, TJ, UZ) there were 3 participants. 18 participants flew to Prague via Moscow and 3 of them via Istanbul (Azerbaijanis get visas and inexpensive tickets to Istanbul), so the schedule described below started in Prague and ended in Tartu. Participants werejoined by Project Leader (Dr Gajewski from Warsaw) in Prague, who accompanied them all the way along to Tartu.. In each of the 3 venues following actions were realized: - Introductory lecture by the local NREN director - Shorter lectures by heads of the divisions - Visits to one of the divisions - Visit to a major user/client institution - Final panel (wrap-up) discussion ==================================================== List of Presentations ==================================================== Part I: 2-3.July 2002 in Prague (Czech Republik) ==================================================== Opening Mr Helmut Sverenyak Workshop format and programme Mr Jacek Gajewski Short history of NREN creation and development, organizational sub-units and governance model of CESNET "Non-commercial CESNET" and "commercial CESNET" - how these two organizations cooperate Mr Helmut Sverenyak The statute (charter), the importance of different paragraphs of a chapter, description of legal form, the choise of a given legal form among others allowed by law, needed licenses Mr Josef Gabriel Basic documents and acts defining relations to funding bodies, funding model, self-sustainability, yearly planning and reporting, auditing Mr Helmut Sverenyak Users of CESNET, services available, typical agreement with users, rules of using the NREN network, strategic partnerships, relations with Telecom and European backbone providers Mr Tomas Kosnar Acceptable User Policies, domain registration policies Mrs Gabriela Krcmarova Network Services Mr Vaclav Novak Network Security Mr Milan Sova Visit to the Charles University - Relations of University to the Academic Provider, are they happy with CESNET, do they use services of other providers and if yes, why? University Network Administrator Wrap-up of CZ part (at CESNET) ==================================================== Part II: 4.-6.July 2002 in Warsaw, Poland ==================================================== Welcome to NASK, NASK history and structure Mr M.Kozlowski Creation of NREN - technichal aspects Mr Andrzej Skrzeczkowski NREN security, CERT Mr Ireneusz Parafjanczyk Domain Policy Mr Andrzej Bartosiewicz NREN Legal Aspects (statute, etc.) Mrs Maria Ziolkowska SGGW Network, contacts with NASK Mrs Bozena Ratter, Mrs Maria Trampczynska Welcome to ICM, Supercomputer centres in Poland Mr Marek Niezgodka Grid calculations Mr Bohdan Lesyng Networking aspects of supercomputing Mr Wojciech Sylwestrzak POL - 34 - another Polish academic provider Mr Piotr Sasiedzki Wrap-up of Polish part Mr M. Kozlowski, Mr J. Gajewski ==================================================== Part III: 8.-9.July 2002 in Tartu, Estonia ==================================================== Creation and development of EENet. Organizational structure and governance model. Statute and legal form of EENet. Possible other legal forms. Mr Mihkel Kraav Services of EENet. Domain registration policies. Strategic partnerships, relations with Telecom and European backbone providers. Network Security. Mr Tarmo Ainsaar Development of needs of (academic) users of networks in Estonia and in the World. Mrs Anne Villems Basic documents defining relation of EENet and the Ministry of Education (as the funding body). Funding model, self-sustainability, yearly planning, reporting and auditing. Strategic plans of the Ministry about academic networking in Estonia. Mr Jaak Anton Users of EENet. Typical agreements with users. Acceptable User Policies. Ms Anne Märdimäe Relations of the Tartu University and EENet.Services of EENet as seen by the main user. Experiences of using services provided by commercial ISP-s. Mr Andres Salu, Mr Otto Teller Roundtable panel Short presentations (5 min) from each participating country Wrap-up of the workshop. Plans for future ==================================================== Summary of presentations ==================================================== On the whole the presentations in each country covered the following topics: - short history of NREN creation, chart/map showing NREN's organizational sub-units and governance model - the statute (charter), description of legal form, needed licenses - basic documents and acts defining relations to funding bodies, funding model, self-sustainability, auditing - typical agreement with users, rules of using the NREN network, strategic partnerships - Acceptable User Policies The whole workshop was very interactive, there were hundreds of questions from the participants. Lecturers were asked not to avoid the difficult problems and retrospect over their successes and failures. Project Leader acted as a discussion moderator and helped with the translation to Russian. ==================================================== Achieved goals ==================================================== Almost none recent scientific and technological advancements have had such a profound influence on our lives as networking and the Internet. The Internet (arguably the quintessence of networking) offers the possibility to connect almost everyone using the same set of principles and concepts. It has become one of the most powerful media, where citizens have access to world wide information, with nearly no filtering influence of governments (which is very important in Central Asia/Caucasus where reminiscences of Soviet system still exist). On the other hand Internet has been (at least formally) recognized by the governments in this region, as a tool to enhance international contacts and working abilities of local scientists and as a tool supporting the modernization of their education. Also this openness to world know-how and generally accepted standards is believed to be the factor, which can brake extremist movements, recently becoming visible in this part of the world. The importance of Internet and free information flow were stressed several times by speakers and well understood by participants, who shared their local problems and attentively learned about possible (unfortunately not always applicable in their political situation) solutions. The workshop proved that a NREN is a very important factor in bringing the Internet connectivity and networking to the research and educational communities in all countries. It is even more pertinent for the countries where the telecommunication markets and democracy are still in the phase of rapid development. The participants understood that they themselves should be the actual leaders of the technical and social developments in their countries. They were shown how they should present them to their societies, for example by using certain Public Relation procedures. It was clear for participants, that in some form, directly and/or indirectly, their government should play a vital role in the development of an institution/organization responsible for the internal and external connectivity of the national research and education institutions, even if this is not a real situation nowadays. This is also consistent with the argument that both science and education have a crucial place in creating economic growth, foster national and international understanding and co-operation, and thus create a favourable climate for political and social stability that improve the well-being and the quality of life of every citizen. The participants were equipped with several arguments and examples of procedures, with which they can approach their governments and convince them about the unique role, which the NREN can play in socio-economic development of each country and about the necessity of governmental financial support in the early stage of NREN development. Participants were given tens of the 'best practice' examples of typical NREN activities, which should be useful for organizations of NRENs in AM, AZ, GE, KG, KZ, TJ and UZ. While the provision of connectivity is the NREN's major goal, the more general mission is to create the favourable environment for the science and education communities to facilitate and improve the quality of research and education by unconstrained flow of information, provision of information resources and tools. Due to the complicated economical situation in target countries the existing 'NREN-like' groups have developed the way of funding their expenses mainly from grants by various international donoring organizations. Trials to secure steady local funding, either from government or from users, have been rare, weak and not successful. The examples shown by more developed NRENs from CEE showed that this is not an acceptable policy for a longer time scale, and that the proper funding system should be a mixture of grants and governmental funds. This system should be gradually transformed into a model, where university and/or research institutions pay (at least partially) for the NREN services from the subsidies they receive from their governments. Several models, how these payments could be arranged, e.g. by the membership fees, were discussed. Last but not least, due to the highly interactive atmosphere and ten days spent together in various countries, cultures and conditions strong human links between the participants developed. People from the same or different countries understood that their former competitors could be their partners, that some deeply rooted rivalries had no real background. The participants understood that many tasks could be easier and more effectively organized on a regional basis, e.g. if all countries would use the same satellite transponder and up-link station; that educational activities (workshops, distance education, etc.) might be done regionally due to still existing general knowledge of Russian language, etc. Prior to the workshop a 'NREN creation handbook' and the programme of the workshop were circulated among future participants. Additionally, a short questionnaire a short questionnaire was distributed in the beginning of the workshop= asking, what topics the participants wanted to be discussed in more detail and eventually, which persons they want to meet. This allowed slight modifications of the programme and/or directing the panel roundtable discussions to vital issues. In the end of the workshop, the participants were asked to prepare short statements about what they had learned and what topics were not covered sufficiently as well as what follow-up actions would be most useful (see below "Possible follow-up actions and recommendations") taking into account the actual situation of their countries. On a longer scale local OSI, CEENet and UNDP offices will be in permanent contact with workshop alumni after the workshop, helping them in practical aspects of NREN creation (e.g. legal advice how to write a statute, constructing sound business plans, etc.). In future all eight NREN directors will meet regularly at CEENet Policy and/or Managerial workshops and at Silk Board meetings (the next one is the "3rd CEENet Workshop on Network Management", Zagreb, 21-25 September 2002), where they will present progress reports. OSI, CEENet and UNDP are planning to send consultants to all those countries to help 'in-place' in the process of NREN creation. =============================================================== Possible follow-up actions and recommendations for each country =============================================================== Armenia - needs technical consultancy in organization of fibre optic network, especially for creating MANs. Assistance in creating a NREN organization structure with a sound governance model would be appreciated. They suggest to organize a special workshop devoted to the fund raising. They need help in searching partners for possible EC-funded projects under the FP6. Azerbaijan - a work is currently being done, in accordance with the adopted National Strategy, on developing of MoU between AZRENA and AzNet ( network organizations set up by UNDP and Soros foundation). Their cooperation will be the based on co-sharing principle. Eventually an Association will be created, which will represent the whole of Azeri networking community on international level. Azerbaijan is seeking the possibilities of regional cooperation and needs the creating of a content in Azeri language. Consultancy is needed in shaping the .az domain administration policy and to set up good contacts with RIPE, CENTR and ICANN. Assistance in developing Distance Education would be appreciated. Georgia - has a need in assistance in developing MPLS and IPv6 services as well as a Distance Education system. A training for Governmental officials and those from NREN, who have to work with Government would be appreciated. Kazakhstan - a newly created KAZRENA Association has already 28 members. They need assistance in content development and Distance Education. A policy of connecting the secondary schools has to be developed. They are interested in fostering the international cooperation, in particular with Russia. Kyrgyzstan - asks for assistance in content development and distance education. Help in creating efficient tools of know-how exchange and training of technical personal would be appreciated. Cooperation programme (initiated by USAID and done together with Kazakhstan) of international expert's and consultants' visits, is being envisaged. Tajikistan - TARENA associates 8 universities and 7 institutes. They have got the VSAT licence and will build MAN in Dushanbe. As the region is very mountainous, the VSAT technology is the most suitable. They wish to further develop the cooperation with CADA (Central Asian Developing Agency). They investigate the possibility to cooperate with local TELENERGO companies. Their highest need is to train more network experts. Uzbekistan - needs a seminar for the decision makers. UZ would appreciate sending to Uzbekistan good foreign experts to eveluate the projects and give technical recommendations for further network development. They also ask for more effective information exchange mechanisms between Silk partners.