The GÉANT Clouds team and the Special Interest Group on Cloud Interoperable Software Stacks (SIG-CISS) invite you to their joint side meetings on Monday 10 June at TNC24 in Rennes, France. The two sessions will be held as two distinct but interconnected meetings, both touching on the role of NRENs in Trusted Research Environments (TREs), and on topics of security, privacy, and data confidentiality in the cloud.
In order to attend the TNC24 side meetings, it is mandatory to purchase a ‘Side Meeting Pass’ via the TNC24 website by 6 June, either while purchasing a full conference pass or as a separate pass: https://tnc24.geant.org/register/
GÉANT Cloud Horizons, Frameworks and Sensitive Data
Date and time: 10 June 2024, 9:00-12:30 CEST
Duration: 3,5h
Location: Le Couvent des Jacobins, Salle 3 (Rennes, France)
This workshop, organised by the GÉANT Clouds team, will be divided into two parts, focusing both on ongoing and perspective GÉANT cloud activities.
The session will start with an overview of the team’s current activities, goals and plans for Above-the-Net services, of the ongoing collaboration with SIG-CISS and with other initiatives, with insights on community developments, and on the unique role of GÉANT and of the NRENs in the procurement and distribution of commercial cloud services towards the pan-European R&E community.
Following on, there will be a detailed presentation the flagship GÉANT Cloud frameworks, of their evolution from 2016 until present days, highlighting their impact, growth over the years and cost savings generated. Additionally, we will hear about the status and benefits for institutions of the upcoming OCRE 2024 framework, about the key role of Cloud Service Delivery Managers (CSDMs) at NRENs and about the importance of good communications between the GÉANT Cloud team, CSDMs, and end users.
Hendrik Ike, Public Affairs Manager at GÉANT, will provide an overview of the Open Science policy landscape, with a particular focus on EOSC and on the implications of the EU Digital Services Act.
The workshop will then move to discussions on strategic planning for GÉANT cloud activities, cloud infrastructure and use cases, leading into the SIG-CISS meeting by introducing the topic of sensitive data as well as the role of NRENs in Trusted Research Environments (TREs). We will also hear about the progress and initial achievements of the GÉANT Cloud Strategy forum and about future plans and developments regarding Above-the-Net services in the GN5-2 project. Concluding the session, Ivar Janmaat from SURF will give a demonstration of the SURF Research Cloud, a platform for research and collaboration where researchers can easily build Virtual Research Environments (VREs).
SIG-CISS at TNC24
Date and time: 10 June 2024, 14.00-17.30 CEST
Duration: 3,5h
Location: Le Couvent des Jacobins, Salle 13 (Rennes, France)
The Special Interest Group on Cloud Interoperable Software Stacks (SIG-CISS) gathers community experts in the Cloud domain, and the GÉANT NRENs Cloud engineers, to deal with the implementation of Cloud services, the deployment of Cloud infrastructure, with an emphasis on Storage and Computing and to share best practices and experiences.
The 14th SIG-CISS meeting, taking place at TNC24 in Rennes, will focus on handling and managing sensitive data through the Cloud, building Trusted Research Environments (TREs) and Secure Processing Environments.
Abdulrahman Azab, representing Sigma2/NeIC and the EOSC-ENTRUST project, will provide a general introduction to the topic of Trust in sharing sensitive data, also in relation to building Trusted Research Environments and to the experiences of the Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC) and EOSC.
Continuing on the topic of Trusted Research Environments, Ivar Janmaat, Manager SURF Research Cloud at SURF, will present the SANE (Secure ANalysis Environment) project, building a secured environment allowing researchers to analyse sensitive data, while keeping full control of the data to the data provider.
We will then hear from Ann Harding, Reliability Engineering Coach at Switch, about the OpenStack Business Platform, one of the projects recently funded by the GÉANT innovation programme, and led by the Georgian NREN GRENA.
After the break, Ville Tenhunen, Data Solutions Architect at EGI will give participants an overview of the EGI Working Group on Trusted Research Environments, of its composition and activities since the launch in October 2023.
Finally, Mario Reale, Senior Research Engagement Manager at GÉANT and coordinator of SIG-CISS and SIG-DHD (Digital Health Data) will present the outcomes of the recent eHealth survey for NRENs, a questionnaire on the role of NRENs in the domain of Digital Health Data and current level of support to the eHealth community.
Check the full TNC24 programme and get a side meeting pass by 6 June to attend: https://tnc24.geant.org/register/
