Infrastructure-as-a-Service to meet a wide range of high-performance and secure cloud needs without requiring a separate procurement process
CENIC today announced the availability of a full and feature-rich suite of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud services for its member institutions in California's research and education community from top cloud providers CenturyLink, FireHost, and Verizon.
"CENIC has closely watched the evolution of cloud services, and we are delighted to offer these services to our members," said CENIC President and CEO Louis Fox. "We're especially pleased, given the breadth of services now available from CenturyLink, FireHost, and Verizon, that CENIC members will be able to obtain an appropriate level of service, whatever their particular requirements may be, whether for research, education, or administrative activities."
Adoption of these services has been greatly simplified for CENIC member institutions. Thanks to their participation in CENIC's RFP process, members will be able to take advantage of these services without initiating their own internal RFP processes by using the contracts CENIC has signed with these three providers. The California Community Colleges, the California State University, and the University of California systems were active participants in the development of CENIC's RFP and the subsequent selection of the three vendors — yet another example of the value CENIC provides in bringing together the state's research and education communities to share resources and expertise and benefit from economies of scale.
"CENIC's vision in acquiring cloud services will greatly benefit the California Community Colleges," noted Tim Calhoon, executive director of the California Community Colleges Technology Center. "Our colleges now have the ability to access superior virtual data center services directly peered with the CENIC network. The speed and security afforded by this arrangement will enable the colleges to further ensure that the information and online applications used by over 2 million community college students, faculty, and staff are always available."
"The California State University is the largest four-year comprehensive university in the country, and our demand for cloud services is growing steadily. Having ready access to these services is a tremendous benefit to our campuses," said Mark Crase, interim assistant vice chancellor and CIO for CSU. "Partnering with CENIC to achieve additional economies of scale makes this approach an even better deal for the California education and research community, and the citizens we serve."
The cloud services now available over CENIC's California Research & Education Network from CenturyLink, FireHost, and Verizon offer excellent functionality and flexibility over a broad range of services to address a wide variety of needs.
"We are honored to partner with CENIC to ensure the user-friendly CenturyLink Cloud platform is readily available to IT managers and developers at educational institutions in California," said Betty Reynolds, vice president for Southwest region at CenturyLink. "Our highly secure and scalable cloud platform features an intuitive control panel interface that enables organizations to manage their entire IT environment — everything from app development to disaster recovery — from a single pane. And the disruptive pricing model makes the decision for both temporary and long-term workloads an easy one."
"FireHost is a secure cloud provider that shares CENIC's vision of protecting critical data," shared Bruce MacFadyen, FireHost's senior vice president for customer engagement. "With the cadence of data breaches grabbing headlines every week, the need for a provider who can prevent these incidents and prioritize security for educational institutions, their employees, and their students is mandatory. We help security-conscious organizations accomplish this goal. We help them reduce risk by providing the most secure cloud in the industry to protect their data and exceed compliance requirements."
"Cloud computing is fundamentally transforming the business of government," noted Michael Maiorana, senior vice president of public sector markets with Verizon Enterprise Solutions. "By joining forces with CENIC to deliver Verizon's cloud and data center solutions, educators across California will be able to adopt effective and proven technologies to enhance education and research programs, manage applications and data, scale IT resources quickly, efficiently and securely, and boost disaster recovery efforts."
See more information on the suite of cloud services available to CENIC member institutions.