GÉANT Selects Orange Business Services as Its Trusted Cloud Service Provider for pan-European Educational and Research Ecosystems

Orange Business Services has been selected by GÉANT as one of its preferred partners in its Open Clouds for Research Environments project (OCRE). OCRE is designed to provide academic and research institutions with all the benefits of cloud, including enhanced security, flexibility, improved efficiencies and collaboration, for their projects.

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Orange Business Services has been selected by GÉANT as one of its preferred partners in its Open Clouds for Research Environments project (OCRE). (Photo credit: Orange Business Services)

The OCRE project aims to accelerate cloud adoption in the European research community by bringing together cloud providers with earth observation, health, research and education groups. The agreement enables Orange Business Services to sell public cloud services to National Research Education Networks (NREN) and more than 8,000 institutions across Europe – covering over 50 million users – and leverages Orange local, in-country support and capabilities across Europe.

GÉANT is a fundamental part of Europe’s e-infrastructure, delivering a pan-European network for scientific excellence, research, education and innovation. It provides a catalog of connectivity, collaboration and identity services to its users, as well as IT resources through the OCRE program. OCRE delivers a process for the selection and adoption of cloud-based tools via a framework of agreements with service providers. These are designed to meet the specific requirements of all the various research and education communities.

Accelerating cloud adoption in the European research and education communities with Orange trusted cloud and cloud expert services

Orange Business Services will provide its trusted public cloud platform Flexible Engine, a high-performance infrastructure capable of supporting emerging technologies, such as big data management and artificial intelligence (AI), with a security perimeter to guarantee the security of the platform.

Flexible Engine services are already leveraged in numerous European initiatives and will be part of the sovereign offers within the GAIA-X ecosystem, which was set up to develop and promote common requirements for a transparent and interoperable European data infrastructure. Orange is one of the 22 founding members of GAIA-X, contributing to the development of the guidelines and core services for this new federated, open data infrastructure based on European values.

“The knowledge and expertise of Orange in the cloud environment will enable us to give our members the right combination of governance, services and pricing. This will allow our members to tap into the power of a future-proofed cloud infrastructure that will significantly expand their research capabilities,” said Dave Heyns, Director Cloud and Digital Services, GÉANT.

“We are thrilled to be a chosen cloud provider in the Open Clouds for Research Environments (OCRE) project. By teaming with Orange Business Services, GÉANT has a trusted and global digital services partner capable of delivering the agility of cloud and associated professional services to research and education groups across Europe. This will enable them to remain at the forefront of research and innovation. With our extensive GDPR and European regulatory expertise, researchers can have a trusted environment for their own intellectual properties,” said Kristof Symons, Executive Vice President, International, Orange Business Services.

About Orange Business Services

Orange Business Services is a network-native digital services company and the global enterprise division of the Orange Group. It connects, protects and innovates for enterprises around the world to support sustainable business growth. Leveraging its connectivity and system integration expertise throughout the digital value chain, Orange Business Services is well placed to support global businesses in areas such as software-defined networks, multi-cloud services, Data and AI, smart mobility services, and cybersecurity. It securely accompanies enterprises across every stage of the data lifecycle end-to-end, from collection, transport, storage and processing to analysis and sharing.

With companies thriving on innovation, Orange Business Services places its customers at the heart of an open collaborative ecosystem. This includes its 28,500 employees, the assets and expertise of the Orange Group, its technology and business partners, and a pool of finely selected start-ups. More than 3,000 multinational enterprises, as well as two million professionals, companies and local communities in France, put their trust in Orange Business Services.

For more information, visit www.orange-business.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and our blogs.

Orange is one of the world's leading telecommunications operators with revenues of 42.3 billion euros in 2020 and 259 million customers worldwide at 31 December 2020. Orange is listed on the Euronext Paris (ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (ORAN). In December 2019, Orange presented its new "Engage 2025" strategic plan, guided by social and environmental accountability. While accelerating in growth areas, such as B-to-B services and placing data and AI at the heart of innovation, the entire Orange Group will be an attractive and responsible employer.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange or Orange Brand Services Limited.

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