Project “Virtual Silk Highway”             
TARENA is participant of the NATO Science Committee project “Virtual Silk Highway”, hereafter Silk project, that integrate National Research and Educational networks from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, providing them high-rate Internet access free of charge or with high discount fees.  The main goal of the Silk project is to promote essentially increasing Information interchanging rate  between research and educational society of Caucasus and Central Asia regions.         
Realization of the Silk is based on forming network infrastructure, aggregating academic and educational institutions of mentioned regions. The backbones for this infrastructure are NRENs, including TARENA, that functioning in their own counties and have tight interconnections each other and with NATO Science Committee. The head of NRENs are members of a Silk Board that is managing and coordinating organ of the project and define the main strategy of activity of member NRENs. The meetings of the Silk Board are hold in on of the participant-countries every four months.                
To achieve aimed plans, Silk project is cooperating  with such a organizations and companies like CISCO, DESY, GEANT, SOROS Foundation, UNDP, USAID, World Bank, RUG etc.
Beginning from March 2002 till 2005 a complementary project, a SPONGE project, was been carried out, which aimed to elevate effectiveness of intercourse between members and participants of Silk project. Thus, in the frame of SPONGE, some services on managing of Silk project, do*****ent circulation, web-sites and information providing were been carried out.          
More details about Silk project of NATO Science Committee could be found in the web-site www.silkproject.org.  In the beginning of 2005 a new joint project of NATO Science Committee and European Union commission called “OCCASION” was been launched that is destined to essentially reinforce “Virtual Silk Highway” project.

Project OCCASION
OCCASION (www.ist-occasion.org) is an international project financed by European Union and covering countries of European Union, Caucasus, Central Asia and Afghanistan. The main goal of OCCASION project is to establish collaboration between scientists and researchers from countries participating in the SILK project and their colleagues from European Union.
OCCASION assists in managing the SILK project that provides connectivity to GEANT2 from the National Research and Educations Networks (NRENs) of the 8 Newly Independent States (NISs) of the Caucasus and Central Asia, and Afghanistan. The SILK Project is supported by a number of organisations, with the largest funding coming from the NATO Security through Science Programme, with substantial contributions from Cisco and DESY.
The duration of OCCASION project is two years and it started in November, 2006. From that moment it was elaborated the strategy of implementation of the project. It consists of six work packages – groups of works. Besides the management of the SILK and network management, the project is to provide additional features (e.g., VoIP and videoconferencing tools), and services such as information, CSIRTs and operational support. Their deployment and maintenance help researchers in the Silk countries to collaborate with their colleagues in the European Union.
Another aspect of the project is to identify significant User Groups, active in both the SILK countries and the European Union, who need to use the SILK network for their collaborations. It then fosters the requisite training and joint workshops (co-funded with other bodies) to enable useful collaborations. Finally, it will assist the SILK NRENs to move towards an environment in which their networks will be self-sustainable without continued large-scale financial contributions from the EC and NATO.
The discussions of results achieved and short-term plans take place during joint SILK and OCCASION Boards Meetings, which are held every quarter, three times a year, in one of the SILK countries.
The OCCASION project provides a number of relevant services to the scientific community: 
1)  Management of the Silk Project as a whole.
2)  Management and Performance measurement of the Silk network communications system between the NRENs and GEANT2. This includes the provision of bandwidth, looking after equipment maintenance and repair, and managing the billing of extra bandwidth on a subsidised basis
3)  Scheduling and performance management to ensure adequate Quality of Service for the VoIP and conferencing applications.
4)  Assistance in the addressing organisation and equipment set-up to ensure that the Silk/OCCASION services are compatible with those running on the European NRENs.
5)  Operations of the CSIRTs in the Silk countries as part of the European CSIRT system.
6)  Ensuring adequate Web portals and information to keep the NRENs themselves, their users and the European research community informed of the potential of the Silk/OCCASION services.
7)  Limited provision of supercomputing facilities on the Blue Gene supercomputer at Groningen U. 
8)  Provision of VoIP and Multimedia Conferencing facilities for collaboration with European researchers. The total activity of the OCCASION project is to ensure the current integration of the SILK NREN networks into the European GEANT2 research community, and to facilitate their progression to higher performance interconnection in an economic and sustainable manner.