GÉANT "IaaS Cloud Services" Framework Portfolio
ATTENTION: These framework agreements expired at the end of 2020. Therefore, the information on this page is no longer valid!
Currently, the "2020 IaaS+ Framework Agreement" is available (2021-2024).
In 2016, the Association of European Scientific Networks, GÉANT, has invited the public to a tender for a framework agreement concerning the provision of certain cloud-based infrastructure services for all interested GÉANT participants. The tender conformed to the European public procurement law. The goal was to identify potential suppliers of "IaaS Cloud Services" specifically tailored to the needs of European educational, scientific and research institutions. "IaaS" is an acronym for "Infrastructure as a Service"; i.e. virtual servers, computing services and storage services.
As a result, a broad range of IaaS services is available to interested ACOnet participants without the need to issue further individual tenders. This is true as of mid-2017 and until the end of 2020. In all that, ACOnet assumes only a very small role; that of a "referrer", simply putting interested parties and vendors in touch. Any resulting agreements, and any settlements are to be established strictly between the suppliers and the interested participant.
Basic Information
- Overview of vendors (throughout Europe) in the framework of GÉANT
- GÉANT Cloud Services Resource Library
(contains guidelines, the "GÉANT IaaS Framework Cookbook" and further information) - At your request, we can make some non-public GÉANT resources (such as the IaaS Service Matrix and a Contracts Repository) available to participants in the ACOnet Identity Federation or eduGAIN. To gain access, simply write to cloud(at)aco.net (please no more than two persons per participant).
- Further information from GÉANT for interested organizations can be found at Support for Institutions.
ACOnet-specific Resources
- Suppliers within ACOnet (in German)
- Legal Issues (in German)
- Vienna University's documentation regarding "IaaS Cloud Services" (in German)
(No) Support
We (the ACOnet team) have little expertise regarding "Public Cloud" topics. We do hope, however, to gain some know-how and to build some sort of community support structure with the help of those ACOnet participants who make use of this offer. We therefore kindly ask all ACOnet participants to contact us when you enter negotiations or at least before you enter an agreement. Simply write to cloud(at)aco.net.
At the very least, we should verify that the resulting traffic will be routed via the scientific infrastructure. This should make it easier to monitor the data flow performance but should also help to avoid nasty surprises regarding the use of commodity bandwidth.
We also hope for lively discussions and sharing of experiences on our "cloud-discuss" mailing list.