Estonian Educational and Research Network (EENet) is a governmental nonprofit organization established in August 1993 by the Ministry of Education of Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 with the task of managing, coordinating and developing the computer network

Computer network

A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

 of science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 and culture

Culture

Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...

. Since 1997 EENet operates as a state agency administered by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research.

In 1993 the whole network consisted of less than two hundred computers in Tartu

Tartu

Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...

 and Tallinn

Tallinn

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

. In the beginning of the year 2004 the number of end-users of Estonian academic network was approximately 210,000 people: researchers, students, teachers, pupils etc. The network extends to most counties in Estonia.

The mission of EENet is to provide a high quality national network infrastructure for the Estonian research, educational and cultural communities. The services of EENet include permanent Internet connection as well as several other services - webhosting, e-mail

E-mail

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

 services, FTP

File Transfer Protocol

File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...

, DNS

Domain name system

The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...

, consultations in case of security problems, etc. Development projects are being carried out in cooperation with universities and institutes. In 2004 the project "Estonian GRID" (Eesti GRID) was started. EENet also participates in the BalticGrid-II project, and manages the BalticGrid Portal, which is based on P-GRADE Portal

P-GRADE Portal

The P-GRADE Grid Portal is a grid portal solution that allows users to manage the whole life-cycle of executing a parallel application in a grid, enabling the creation, execution and monitoring of workflows through high-level Web interfaces....

 technology.

EENet manages the Estonian top level domain (.ee

.ee

.ee is the Internet country code top-level domain of Estonia, operated by Estonian Internet Foundation.-Second-Level Domain Names:* .com.ee -- companies as defined in the Commercial Code* .pri.ee -- individuals...

).