Within GÉANT, European NRENs have been collaborating on cloud computing for several years. Cloud services are in high demand and NRENs are in a natural position to deliver such services with the right conditions: easy, secure and well integrated to the research and education community.
These efforts have progressed beyond the lab and into the operational areas. Today efforts are focused on NRENs making cloud services available to their communities. Alongside this, cloud-based ICT services are also being developed in the GÉANT product pipeline.
The GÉANT Cloud Services initiative is focused on assisting National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) and higher education and research organisations to become more agile, as well as provide users with the right mix and range of IT cloud-based services and products that meet their needs and are uniquely suited to the community’s requirements. This means developing and/or acquiring fully interoperable solutions based on:
- Security, privacy and confidentiality.
- Standards for seamless interoperability to (no vendor lock-in).
- Reliability, availability, data location and replication.
- Diverse choice from a large selection of services.
- Economic sustainability.
- Favourable consortium pricing agreements.
- Direct peering.
- Federated Authentication and ID management (AAI).
- Adaptive payment methods.
GÉANT has developed a range of resources to support NRENs in cloud adoption and take-up.