Eighth CEENet Workshop in Network Technology

Title :
Engineering the Virtual Silk Highway . 
The Eight CEENet Workshop on Network Technology
Location : Central European University Conference Centre 
Dates : August, 19 . 29, 2002
Number of working days: 6 full- + 2 half-days
Broadening of CEENet Educational Activities
The dynamic and innovative nature of the CEENet Education Programme with 
respect to the organization and the execution of the workshops in the 
areas of technology, management and policy was broaden and reinforced 
again during the "NATO ANW - Eighth CEENet Workshop on Network Technology" 
held in Budapest from August 19 to August 29, 2002, colored for the first 
time with hands-on exercises using a real Virtual Silk Highway set-up and 
an extensive programme on VSAT technology.
Request for the Workshop
The workshop was a response to the request from Central Asian and Caucasus 
NRENs, which were in urgent need to train their technicians, in view of 
the foreseen delivery of the Silk set-ups in the near (2002 and 2003) 
future. ANW application has been sent before the Jan 15th deadline, and 
the timely decisions of the NATO Science Committee and Networking Panel, 
as well as splendid support of the local host (CEU CC) made all 
preparations very easy. 
Number of Participants
Workshop has been planned for 32 participants: 3 candidates from each of 8 
countries, involved in Silk project, have been invited. For the last 8 
places candidates from other CEE countries, with clear interest in VSAT 
technology have been invited. Not all NRENs from Silk countries were able 
to nominate 3 candidates, also in the very last moment, 2 candidates from 
Turkmenistan could not leave their country. Thus additional students from 
countries, which do not need Hungarian visa, have been invited. 
Altogether, due to a very efficient visa support organized by CEU 
Conference Centre, 33 students from 18 countries participated in the 
workshop. For those technicians from Silk countries, whose command of 
English was not enough to follow the lectures, a translation to Russian 
language has been provided.
It is clear that the combined efforts of the organizers, the lecturers, 
the sponsors, and more important, the interest and the diligence of the 
students, produced rather exceptional results and fulfillment of all the 
objectives set prior to the Workshop.
Set-up of the VSAT Antenna
Prior to the workshop, the NATO Co-director Dr Jacek Gajewski, visited 
DESY-Hamburg, to take part in the VSAT vendor training and arranging the 
details of hardware delivery to Budapest and the software installation. 
The hardware has been shipped by a truck. Unfortunately the equipment 
couldn't be sent to Hungary as an ATA-Carnet demonstration equipment, 
since it already was on a temporary residence in Germany (bound for 
Central Asia/Caucasus). Nevertheless, the custom clearance in Hungary has 
been done effectively within 4 hours with the help of professional custom 
agent. In parallel a (successful) application has been issued to obtain 
the operation license from Hungarian Radio-Frequency authority. During the 
next 2 days two antennas have been mechanically set-up, and later within 
one day the two-way VSAT communication has been established by a team of 
CEENet lecturers. Valuable comments from this installation process have 
been distributed and will be used in subsequent installations in Silk 
countries.
Books Donation for Students
The education environment, due to generous donation of equipment by CISCO, 
and the previous preparations by the organizers, the staff of CEU CC, and 
the core lecturers was more then adequate and the operations were most of 
the time flawless. Due to the another donation provided by O'Reilly and 
CISCO Press in books, estimated value of about 35 000 USD, all of the 
participants and their respective organizations and institutions were 
presented with much needed literature and software, often rather difficult 
to obtain in their developing countries.