GÉANT has launched its new EU-compliant OCRE cloud framework to help accelerate cloud adoption in education and research.
Jisc is proud to be delivering the new OCRE cloud framework for the UK education and research sector. The expanded infrastructure as a service (IaaS) framework will help accelerate cloud service adoption and is part of the larger Open Clouds for Research Environments (OCRE) project.
Jisc will engage with education and research institutions to understand their requirements, provide documentation and guidance, and liaise with cloud service resellers and vendors on behalf of the sector.
Following a tender process, the OCRE project consortium – led by the pan-European education and research data network GÉANT and incorporating CERN, RHEA and Trust-IT – has set up framework agreements with various cloud service providers, enabling over 10,000 research and education organisations to provision services, without the need for time-consuming and costly procurement processes.
Superseding a previous GÉANT framework, the OCRE iteration has expanded its scope to include platform as a service (PaaS) and complementary software as a service (SaaS). The framework will enable education and research organisations to find the cloud-based tools that best fit their needs by providing a direct purchasing route. Framework agreements will be valid until the end of 2024.
OCRE project director David Heyns says:
“I am really excited by the opportunities this framework provides for the institutes, the NRENs, the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), and the successful suppliers of these services. We look forward to showcasing the tremendous benefits that consumable commercial cloud-based services bring to the research and education community in Europe in terms of agility, flexibility and vastly improved outcomes.”
The new framework includes a range of cloud platform providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM, Microsoft Azure and Oracle.
A preview version of the OCRE Cloud Catalogue is now available and will ultimately contain all awarded framework services for each country, as well as contact details for each service provider:
Jessica Wu, head of services – cloud solutions at Jisc says:
“This is a much-anticipated opportunity for our community. Members and customers are already familiar with the benefits of the original GEANT IaaS framework, and this new iteration expands the scope of services and the range of suppliers. Purchasing will be simpler, helping to accelerate cloud adoption.”
In addition, the OCRE project consortium will make €9.5m in service credits available to organisations via adoption funding from the European Commission. Funding calls will take place in 2021, seeking proposals that ‘demonstrate the benefits of commercial cloud services for improved research outcomes’.
For more information please contact the team at Jisc on cloudframework@jisc.ac.uk.
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