GÉANT’s Cloud Brokerage service takes the form of a cloud service catalogue which brings together eight suppliers and twelve cloud services and forms the framework for the next phase of clouds services for the R&E community.
All cloud providers are invited to include their cloud services in the catalogue, in order to present these to the research and education community. The basis for this online directory is a coordinated list of pan-European core requirements that cloud service providers are expected to meet.
The catalogue, with its structured listing of cloud providers’ answers to the cloud requirements, offers to the research and education community clarity about providers’ capabilities, which helps when procuring cloud services (subject always to their domestic procurement legislation and applicable EU threshold values).
This catalogue demonstrates how each of these suppliers ensures their services meet the needs of European research and education, including data security and privacy and integration with eduGAIN-enabled authentication and authorisation infrastructure (AAI) services, and rates them against 28 key criteria.
GÉANT offers a wide range of support for NRENs rolling out brokered cloud-based services and Infrastructure as a Framework (IaaS) Framework deployments. These include:
- Data Classification Sheet. Assists decision makers by giving a structured approach to classifying relevant data with respect to security considerations.
- Communication materials. The Cloud team offers templates which NRENs can use for communicating with institutions.
- Cloud Forum. The Cloud team hosts weekly VC forums for NREN Cloud Service Delivery Managers, to discuss and collaborate on rollout strategies, activities and progress.
- NREN and supplier meetings. The Cloud team organises VC and face-to-face sessions for the NRENs and suppliers to meet and discuss cloud delivery and adoption.
- Newsletter. The Cloud team publishes a clouds newsletter, including useful links, case studies, interviews, showcases, workshops, and much more.
- Contract and legal support. • Deployment support. The Cloud team is available to offer support for NRENs at all stages of the cloud services deployment, from initial specs and design to service portfolio rollout. These services include local “road shows”, cloud showcases (live and recorded webcasts), vendor showcases, case studies, research collaborations on operating file storage platforms and IaaS platforms.
- Manpower Support. To facilitate and stimulate adoption and rollout, the GÉANT project is offering additional manpower resources to NRENs. This is to promote the IaaS portfolio of services, the service category on which the brokerage effort has focused to date. The resource allocation is available for use starting in July 2017 and extends until December 2018.
- NREN resources. GÉANT has developed a range of resources to help support NRENs.