The OCRE 2024 European Framework Agreement for cloud services dedicated to research and education is now in force

The Pan-European Framework Agreement forcloudservices–OCRE 2024 – came into force on February 3 for a period of five years, allowing European public research and education institutions (R&E) from 39 countries to enjoyinnovative cloudservices in an easy, compatible, and cost-effective way. The GÉANT Association, 39 NRENs (National Research and Education Networks), and more than 30,000 European public institutions collectively negotiated this framework agreement with the most important providers ofIaaS+ CloudServices.

In compliance with European public procurement law,OCRE 2024 offers a portfolio of 416cloudserviceson17 platforms forIaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), andSaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solutions, based on contracts between GÉANT and 40 service providers. This entire offering is available inthe OCRE 2024 catalogand can be consulted based on availability in each country, preferred platforms, or available providers.

In the specific case of Portugal, nine cloud services were selected, provided by 14 different suppliers. These resources can be purchased by institutions that have expressed an interest in participating, and some improvements requested by the community in relation to previous framework agreements have been introduced into the framework agreement now in force.

GÉANT, the entity responsible for grouping together Europe's national research and education networks, has been signing successive framework agreements at European level for commercial cloud services. In Portugal, the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), through its digital services unit FCCN, is the national representative, having promoted the framework agreements among the national higher education and research communities.

The OCRE 2024 framework agreement marks a step forward in the digital transformation of the European R&E sector, improving service compliance and opening up new opportunities for growth and innovation. With the support of the newly launched GÉANT (GN5-2) project, institutions can now continue to rely on a solid foundation for the coming years.

All information about theacquisition ofOCRE2024cloudservicesand entities participating in OCRE 2024 is available on the GÉANTCloudswebsite andon theOCRE 2024 page on the FCCN website.