Benefits of the IaaS Delivery and Adoption Framework Agreements
GÉANT has established framework agreements with suppliers of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions on behalf of NRENs and member institutions in order to enable R&E institutes to adopt and use a portfolio of IaaS cloud solutions in an easy, safe, predictable and controlled way. Services are connected to the GÉANT and NREN networks and are compatible with the community’s Identity Management capabilities. The IaaS Framework portfolio of services provides standardized contract terms for use by the NRENs to bring to their client institutions, without the need to open individual tenders.
By delivering a Single Digital Market across the European NREN community, institutions are ensured best value IaaS services. Institutions will see that they can obtain favourable discounted rates that meet the specific technical requirements of educational institutions. For NRENs, a Single Digital Market ensures an equal playing field within the community, and saves time and resources on negotiating the labyrinth of legal terms and conditions. In addition, a wide and diverse offering of such vital services serves to strengthen the relationship between NRENs and constituent institutions.
- Financial and Legal Benefits
Through the collective pan-European Tender in GÉANT, the European Research and Education institutions have a stronger negotiating position: with aggregated purchasing power of 10,000 institutions across Europe. GÉANT applied the EC Procurement Directive (2014/24/EU) which enables cross-border procurement through a Centralised Purchasing Body.
- Federated login & AAI Services
IaaS Framework services support authentication provided by eduGAIN, the pan-European standard and SAML-based authentication and authorisation infrastructure for single-sign on/off. This identity management infrastructure significantly reduces the costs, complexity and security risks of the online services and the data is handled safely. - Direct Network Peering for Lower Costs
Direct peering between the NRENs, institutions and IaaS Framework Suppliers eliminates data transport-related costs. Direct peering over GÉANT’s high capacity and low latency network backbone and national NREN network, users rare ensured secure, high capacity and low latency network access to 10,000 institutions across Europe.