Compendium 2002 Country Information

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BASIC INFORMATION

Full name of the organisation (in English:) Georgian Research and Educational Networking Association
Postal address: 10 Chovelidze Street
City/postal code: 380008 Tblisi

Georgia
Year founded: 1999
Year operations started: 1999
Fax: +995 32 250591
Phone: +995 32 250590
Website: www.grena.ge
General e-mail address: contact@grena.ge
Convention used for e-mail addresses: firstname@grena.ge


ORGANISATIONAL INFORMATION

Form of organisation: Separate legal entity /
Other non-profit organisation /
Number of organisational members, shareholders and/or owners: 8
Brief description of the governing structure: The GRENA board consists of representatives of the founding organisations.
The Meeting of GRENA founders appoints an Executive director for a 3 year period.
Involvement in cctld or domain names: No.
Name(s) of Chief Executive Officer(s): Dr. Ramaz Kvatadze
Executive Director
Head of the Technical Staff: Mr. Michael Kartvelishvili Backbone NetworkAdministrator
E-mail: mikho@grena.ge
Name of contact person for PR matters: Dr. Ramaz Kvatadze Executive Director
E-mail: ramaz@grena.ge
Remarks: Also contact Mr. Merab Tavartkiladze, System Administrator, <merab@grena.ge>;


STAFFING

Total number of staff directly employed by the organisation: 12
Number of directly employed staff in Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs): 10
Number of directly employed Technical Staff in FTE: 8
Average number of people (in FTE) working for the organisation as subcontractors or on outsourced basis: 2
Number of subcontracted/outsourced technical staff in FTE: 2
Number of administrative and financial staff in FTE: 2
Number of user support and training staff in FTE: 2
Total amount of effort in person/months per year: 120


FINANCES, BUDGET

The budget year is equal to the calendar year.
Total budget of last financial year (in euro): 0.404
Total budget current financial year (in euro): 0.201
Source Percentage of income Restricted Free
Other sources: 100


Method of client charging: We do not charge them directly
 
Expenditure category: Percentage:
Salaries and general office costs 19
Equipment and software costs 26
Transmission (data communications) 40
Other 5
Method of obtaining national data communications capacity: We own our own network
Method of obtaining international data communications capacity: Through contract(s) with (a) provider(s)
Remarks: Nationally, we also have contracts with several providers.


USER BASE

Total number of students in tertiary education (x 1000): 155, year: 1995
Percentage of University students with internet access through the NREN: 25
Percentage of further education students with Internet access through the NREN: 10
Percentage of secondary education students with internet access through the NREN: 2
External traffic per university student in 2001 (in GB/yr): 0
Congestion in the national network: rank from most (1) to least (5) congested; est. percentage of clients experiencing congestion
Campus LAN 5
Metropolitan or regional network 5
Access network 2
NREN backbone 4
External connections 1


Manner in which institutions are connected to the network:
Directly connected to a POP on the NREN: 97%
Connected via a regional or metropolitan network managed by the NREN: 3%
Connected via another way: <1%
Number of institutions with a permanent connection: 350
Number of connected Universities: 10
Percentage of total number of Universities that is connected via the NREN: 80
Number of connected institutes of higher or further education: 60
Percentage of all institutes of higher or further education that is connected via the NREN: 70
Remarks: 80% of State Universities are connected.

CAPACITY AND PLANS



Current core network capacity in Mbps: 2.048
Total volume of traffic through the network in 2001 (in TB): 3.125
Volume of outbound external traffic in 2001 (in TB): .625
Volume of inbound external traffic in 2001 (in TB): 2.5
Total traffic in January 2002 (in TB): 0.3
Volume of outbound external traffic in January 2002 (in TB): 0.075
Volume of inbound external traffic in January 2002 (in TB): 0.3
Core capacity in Mb/s x km: 1700
Typicial large-site access capacity (in Mbps): 128 Kbps
Expected access capacity in two years time: 3-4 times as high
Operational external connections in January 2002 (usable capacity in Mb/s:)
Caucasus Network, 1.152 Mb/s
SANET, 0.064 Mb/s
Planned additions or upgrades to the external connections in 2002:
DFN (Silk project), 3 Mb/s


Technology used for the core network: 100BaseTX, DSL, wireless
Planned technical changes: Install 1000BaseFX
Expected core capacity in two years: 3-4 times as much
Involvement in Internet Exchange Point: No.
 


SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENTS

Services provided:
- Basic IP provision: Done by NREN
- User support: Done by NREN
- NOC: Done by NREN
- PKI/CA: Not done
Summary of or URL to Acceptable Use Policy: Academic, research and educational institutions, libraries and nonprofit organizations are connected to GRENA network.
Current interests: Wireless LAN /
Diffserv/Qos /
*Middleware /
Caching, Indexing, Mirroring /
Traffic Monitoring /
Web Server content management /
Essential future interests: Lambda Testbed access /
Web Server usage analysis /
Information Content indexing
Potential future interests: MPLS Service Deployment /
Teaching and learning methods /
Video Conferencing /
Joint projects with/on: NATO "Virtual Silk Highway" project, which foresees significant improvements in connection bandwidth and reliability of the national research and education networks in eight countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia. According to the project, GRENA should receive satellite station at the beginning of 2002.