EOSC Future and GÉANT working together to expand access to OCRE cloud services

Originally article authored by Karl Meyer and published by GÉANT here 

The EOSC Future Team and GÉANT have implemented an integration of the OCRE Cloud Framework portfolio into the EOSC Marketplace. With this integration, the services from all 26 participating cloud providers are now available via the EOSC Marketplace.

By offering these services via the EOSC Marketplace, it is hoped that the already successful OCRE procurement framework will be made accessible to an even wider audience.

EOSC Marketplace

The EOSC Marketplace is an integrated portal helping researchers, research projects and organisations to find a wide range of services and support to help them undertake their projects with the most suitable tools which have been developed specifically for the Open Science community.
https://eosc-portal.eu/

OCRE

OCRE (Open Clouds for Research Environments) is an EC funded project to provide research and education users easier access to cloud services across Europe. It supports 40 European countries with a framework of 473 commercial cloud contracts to ease access and provide volume discounts to research and education institutions. Working in conjunction with members of the GÉANT project, this framework offers substantial benefits to the R&E community.

The framework reduces the cost and complexity of cloud service procurement through the following benefits:

• No institutional tendering is required
• Significant discounts are available thanks to pan-European aggregation and the economies of scale
• Advantageous terms and conditions on offer
• The frameworks are in compliance with all relevant EU Regulations (Procurement, VAT, GDPR etc.).
• Technical integration with EOSC and the federation of research data

To find out more about the OCRE Cloud Framework visit clouds.geant.org/ocre