1. GÉANT Cloud Activity Towards Pan-European Cloud Services
Vincenzo Capone (on behalf of GN4 JRA4 Team)
Senior Technical Business Development Officer
Digital Infrastructure for Research
Krakow,

2. IaaS Framework agreement GÉANT CloudVRF service
Topic list
GÉANT cloud strategy
IaaS Framework agreement
GÉANT CloudVRF service

3. Our mission
Meeting user needs through a community effort, adding value in the process

4. GÉANT is a service delivery gateway for those providers
Foreword
GÉANT DOES NOT BUILD OR OPERATE A CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE
OTHERS DO,
R&E PROJECTS & INSTITUTIONS, NRENs
COMMERCIAL PROVIDERS
GÉANT is a service delivery gateway
for those providers

5. Meeting user needs: Providing the right choices
Faster and easier access to a range of useful cloud services by creating the right legal, procurement and technical environments.
Creating a strong community voice, based on the aggregation of demand across GÉANT members, to get the optimum technical and commercial solutions from vendors
Adapted to common community requirements and standards such as federation

6. Meeting user needs: Cloud collaboration areas
SUITES
REALTIME
COMMUNICATION
NREN Questionnaire:
Interest in specific types of services
Willingness to participate
Varying maturity
Varying scopes/mandates
IaaS highest priority
E-LEARNING & EDUCATION
FILE STORAGE
AND SYNC
INFRASTRUCTURE
AS A
SERVICE
Late 2013
IAAS this time, Sync&share next time, WEBrtc and videoconf in future
E-learning added later

7. Community effort: By the community – for the community
Trusted broker and advisor, acting on behalf of the community in a collaborative effort, leveraging the benefits of the GÉANT network, federation and combined expertise.
Sharing resources, experiences and knowledge, establishing common standards and requirements
Aggregating demand, enabling efficiency and economy of scale

8. Community effort: Strategy and standards
SA7

9. Cloud requirements Six pages; easily readable
Cloud requirements Six pages; easily readable
Intellectual property rights and ownership, legal aspects, security, continuity, confidentiality, communication, billing, technical requirements

10. GÉANT Cloud Catalogue Foundation
A growing resource for the research and education community, with a structured listing of service providers and cloud services. It provides a quick and easy guide to clarify the capabilities of providers and helps in the procurement of cloud services
28 services from 16 providers 10

11. Added value: The benefits of clouds, adapted to the community
Maximizing benefits, minimizing risks
Federation and integration; adapting the services to the R&E community portfolio
Data control; adhering to legal and security demands, getting in and out in a timely manner

12. Added value: Key areas TERMS & CONDITIONS BROKERAGE PROCUREMENT
FEDERATED IDENTITY MANAGEMENT & SINGLE SIGN-ON
NETWORK
PEERINGS
Current Cloud Policy is in trial phase

13. Added value for Cloud Service Providers
One set of requirements, agreements and standards; efficiency and economy of scale rather than extensive legal and commercial effort for highly customized agreements for a large number of institutions.
Market access to advanced, trusted and reputable institutions and users across Europe
Approved and promoted by GÉANT and the NRENs – the trusted advisors of the European Research and Education community

14. GÉANT Application Services Delivery
The supply chain
GÉANT Application Services Delivery
handover
handover
NRENs
INSTITUTIONS
ENGAGE WITH PROVIDERS
ENABLE
PROVIDER
READINESS
CREATE DELIVERY FRAMEWORK
ESTABLISH AGREEMENTS
ENGAGE WITH NRENs
ENABLE COMMUNITY
ADOPTION
APPLY SERVICE DELIVERY COMPONENTS,
TO OFFER AVAILABLE SERVICES
CONSUME SERVICES
supply side
demand side 1 2 3

15. Communication and support
Website and catalogue
Webinars, showcases, tutorials
Workshops
Adaptable materials
Use cases, best practices, cookbooks
Presentations at meetings & user conferences
Coach / Key Account Manager

16. IaaS Framework agreement

17. 12 different IaaS solutions 24 providers
Pan-European tender
36 participating NRENs
12 different IaaS solutions
24 providers
incl. Amazon & Microsoft resellers

18. Some benefits
Assure data is handled safely and meets European and national regulations
Acquire and use services through the institutions’ structures:
Affordable and predictable cost and purchasing models (prevent bill shock)
Limit network traffic costs and provide network integration
Log in with institutional account
Be able to move data (to another provider)

19. NREN Role
Referrer NREN understanding and consolidating the needs of the sector, negotiating appropriate terms and conditions with vendor, conducting appropriate levels of due diligence to improve the value of the product for the sector. The vendor makes the improved proposition to the sector and NREN is paid a referral fee. The NREN does not sit in the contracting line.
Reseller In addition to the above, NREN acts as an aggregation point in the HE sector, aggregating demand, and providing scale efficiencies. NREN takes the reseller income at a responsible level with benefits for both the sector and the NREN. NREN sits in the contracting line.
Underwriter In addition to the referrer job, NREN commits to a level of purchase on behalf of the sector and achieves better pricing and a revenue share. The risk lies with NREN to meet the difference between the commitment and the actual purchase. NREN does not sit in the contracting line and is not seen as the supplier – but users get the services “for free”.

20. Direct call off – if happy with GÉANT requirements and ranking
Call off options
Direct call off – if happy with GÉANT requirements and ranking
Mini-competition – for tailor-made solutions;
Technical
Operational (reporting requirements, etc.)
Legal (e.g. specific legal terms needed in the service agreement)
Financial (e.g. NREN cost recovery)

21. IaaS service matrix
Check cloud.geant.org!

22. Tender results – Microsoft & Amazon resellers

23. Tender results – Original infrastructure providers
Find more information at

24. A network performance analysis
GÉANT CloudVRF
A network performance analysis

25. Rented car/owned car problem
The problem
As a general rule, peers are only advertised to customers/connectors, not to other peers (no-transit policy)
Partners from outside Europe should be able to reach the Cloud (virtual) user’s resources, like they were physical resources
Once a VM is created by an R&E user, then it’s R&E traffic (regardless where it’s hosted)
Rented car/owned car problem
If you rent a car, you should be allowed to go wherever you could go with your own car!
Buying Cloud resources is, to some extent, like “renting” servers (mainly referring to IaaS, here)
Users should be enabled to work with them like with any “owned” or in-house server

26. Need to comply with the GEANT/NRENs AUP
The requirements
Need to comply with the GEANT/NRENs AUP
No commercial-to-commercial traffic
But not all NRENs are created equals…
Not all the NRENs are willing to enable the transit to commercial entities
An Opt-in/out mechanism is needed
Not all the partner NRENs outside of GEANT could be willing to receive those prefixes
The providers can be connected in a number of ways
Direct peering with GÉANT
Peering via IX
Peering with an NREN
The technical solution should be able to accommodate all three kind of connections

27. A new GÉANT policy is on trial at the moment
The GÉANT solution
A new GÉANT policy is on trial at the moment
Triggered by CERN tender and the GÉANT Cloud activity (including IaaS tender)
Approved by the GÉANT Board as an interim policy
A VRF for the commercial peerings is already in place
A new VRF has been created
Each NREN and partner can choose if to peer or not (opt-in)
The general peering policy has limitations that make it unfit for the Cloud VRF
Same usual AS number (20965) – unlike the IAS VRF

28. IX Network diagram GEANT NREN (AS100) GÉANT General IP GEANT NREN
GEANT CLOUD VRF
PEERING REN
(AS300)
CP3
(AS33) IX
BGP announcements
No tag
NREN tag
Cloud Provider tag
CP1
(AS11)
CP2
(AS22)

29. Cloud support for CERN
CERN has awarded a contract of 4 months to T-Systems for OTC IaaS to be used for physics data processing
Production phase started on 1st Aug
Network performance was tested over the different paths available:
GEANT CLOUD VRF
DTAG (T-systems) Internet upstream
GEANT IAS (Commercial peerings)
Tested with data transfer from CERN to remote storage – all data courtesy of CERN

30. Through GÉANT Cloud VRF
Peak at 9 Gbps
(limited by available storage,
not by the network)
AS path: (GEANT Cloud VRF, DFN, OTC)

31. Through DTAG (T-System) Internet upstream
Peak at 4.7 Gbps
(10G access capacity)
AS path: (DTAG, OTC)

32. Through commercial peerings
Peak at 1.9 Gbps
(including 400Mb of other traffic)
AS path: (GEANT IAS, NORDUnet, GlobalConnect, SIOL, OTC)

33. Production traffic over GÉANT Cloud VRF
Last month
Daily

34. GÉANT Cloud efforts bring a range of benefit to the R&E community
Conclusions
GÉANT Cloud efforts bring a range of benefit to the R&E community
The IaaS tender results
Direct network connection with the Cloud Providers

35. https://clouds.geant.org/

36. TNC17 – The Art of Creative Networking
Linz, Austria 29 May - 2 June 2017
Call for proposals opens in October! GÉANT invites all community members to submit proposals for single presentations or full sessions, and to actively contribute to next year’s event.