Real needs of the scientific and educational community of Moldova in obtaining a modern information and communication service are the main factor for promoting the development of information technologies, networking infrastructure and filling it with a corresponding content. Scientific-educational Internet segments are actively developing in all countries and the same situation is the reality for Moldova too. The support of the international organizations and foundations - European Commission, UNESCO, NATO Scientific Committee, Soros Foundation, Eurasia Foundation favors the practical realization of the united initiatives in this sphere in Moldova. As a result of this activity national scale NREN (National Research and Educational Network) RENAM (Research and Educational Networking Association of Moldova) infrastructure has begun forming.

The process of creating of common academic networking infrastructure in Moldova passed several stages. Initially research and educational institutions in Moldova designed and implemented independently separate networking subsystems. The initiative of the Academy of Sciences, State University, Technical University and the Academy of Economical Studies of Moldova, supported by the Moldavian department of Soros Foundation in 1996, dial with the elaboration and realization of the "Moldnet" network creation project, was the first and very important uniting step. The positive experience of the joint realization of the "Moldnet" project permitted the Academy of Sciences of Moldova to work out in 1997 a project of the AMNET academic network creation, oriented on the uniting of all research institutes of the Academy of Sciences, a number of departmental scientific establishments and to the interaction with sub-networks of the Universities centers. The support of the AMNET project by the NATO Scientific Committee allowed to formulate and develop an idea of a national scale networking infrastructure creation for science and education in Moldova and in 1999 new projects and prospective technical solutions for the further development of the created networking infrastructure were worked out. The basic propositions of the designed RENAM network creation program assumed implementation of communication highways and access nodes in Chisinau and on the territory of the country, developing of external links to provide reliable connection with Internet.

At present the RENAM network structure unites the following basic components:

the network backbone in Kishinev, including 7 access nodes, connected by communication channels with the capacity 2 Mbps;

peripheral nodes in towns Beltsi (State University Aleco Russo) and Cahul (Moldova-Romanian State University);

the access nodes to the global Internet, exploiting three communication channels for connecting external networking systems: the satellite channel to DESY (Hamburg, Germany), Ethernet thick coaxial link for communication with the DNT Association and a leased communication line to УRelsoft CommunicationsФ (the Internet service and networking providers in Moldova).

Networking infrastructure now offers communication capabilities for main scientific and educational establishments in Moldova and includes 6 State Universities, more than 20 institutions of ASM, many private higher educational institutions and colleges. RENAM Intranet structure is intended to solve the following tasks:

creation and distribution electronic distance learning and training courses for Universities and colleges students, postgraduate students, pupils;

creation bibliography information exchange, electronic publication availability for all members of scientific-educational community of Moldova;

distributed information systems implementation for scientific and educational institutions management;

distributed applied scientific databases creation and exploitation;

join projects realization, information project support, establishing necessary contacts with industry and governmental organizations.

The analysis of the accumulated experience allowed specialists of the RENAM Association together with the representatives of the research institutions and universities, participating in creation and development of the network, have worked out the project of the further improvement of the networking infrastructure and its transition to the new technological basis. The grounds for RENAM network stage II project elaboration are the following:

the growing of number of the network recourses users and their new demands. In 1999, when the initial networking structure was designed it had been estimated that the number of the connected workstations and hosts wouldnТt exceed 700-1000 units. At present total quantity of included in the campuses subnets computers, which utilize RENAM communication highways facilities is over 1800. The dynamic of this growth isnТt decrease, but on the contrary became more intensive at last time;

The necessity of ability of new perspective networking technologies and services. Modern educational systems deployment requires handle the multimedia applications, on-line interactions with remote tutoring systems and on-line monitoring of studentТs knowledge. The new distance learning technologies and applications based on moving objects and voice transmission. All these demands require the increment of a capacity of internal and external communication links, communication equipment possibilities and introducing new communication technologies ensuring utilization Quality of Service regimes within the framework of RENAM network. As the result it will allow applying new popular methods of representation of information, interaction with information resources and also many other modern networking technologies will become available;

Including into the RENAM networking infrastructure additional state and private universities and principal colleges. Creation of presence nodes in new peripheral points on Moldova territory, where research and educational centers and organizations located (see fig. 1);

Improvement of Internet connectivity on the base of the capacity increasing of the existing channels and creation new external links. In particular, providing access into Trans-European network GEANT by realizing the project of direct connection with the scientific and educational network of Romania RoEduNet.