OCRE 2024 is the Pan-European Framework Agreement for cloud services, in force since February 3, 2025, for a period of five years, which allows European public, research and education institutions to take advantage of innovative cloud services in an easy, compatible and economical way.
The Géant Association, 39 NRENs (National Research and Education Networks) and more than 30,000 public European institutions have collectively negotiated a pan-European framework agreement setting out the terms (price, quality, quantity, obligations and procedures for ordering services) with the most important providers of IaaS+ Cloud Services, and in which the Portuguese NREN - the FCCNthe digital services unit of the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) - is responsible for streamlining the necessary contracting procedures between the Confirmed Entities and the suppliers.
Who is it intended for?
The OCRE 2024 Framework Agreement is aimed at the 107 national entities that have expressed their intention to participate by January 31, 2024.
- See the OCRE 2024 Catalog.
Advantages of the OCRE Framework Agreement
- Collective expenses and discounts:
- Better legal and financial conditions;
- Minimum discount on the list price and various additional discounts;
- Cloud entry and exit taxes not charged.
- Easier and simpler access to services, without the need for separate tenders;
- Reduction in process times, contractual procedures and waiting times for services;
- Legal benefits: terms and conditions in line with European Union (EU) directives, which means less legal costs, time and effort;
- Strengthening compliance with European and national standards in matters of:
- Sustainability;
- Privacy;
- Security;
- Reports.
- Direct peering, high capacity and low latency;
- Single sign on (SSO) and SAML user authentication on all cloud services connected to the Géant data network, reducing network traffic costs;
- Support in the process of exiting the agreement, with lower costs;
- Identity management (including support for eduGAIN);
- Bring Your Own License (BYOL);
- Local, fractional and/or CRF (Customer Relationship Management) invoicing;
- Extensive access to further training and support resources.
Service features
The OCRE 2024 Framework Agreement offer features a portfolio of 416 cloud services on 17 platforms for IaaS+ solutions, based on framework agreements between GÉANT and 40 service providers.
In this context, IaaS+ solutions can optionally include:
- PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service)
- SaaS (Software-as-a-Service)
Platform and selected suppliers for Portugal
The OCRE 2024 Framework Agreement is organized in a country lot structure, which incorporates additional competition between resellers or similar, per provider of each platform/service lot. Each supplier was quoted on the basis of the OCRE 2024 Framework Agreement criteria.
For Portugal, Lot 30, nine service platforms/sublots were selected, with the respective suppliers ranked by the best score, as shown in the table below.
Procedures
An institution can conclude a contract using one of three procedures: Direct Award, Desktop Minicompetition (DMC) and Minicompetition (RMC).
Institutions can use a decision tree (illustrative image below) to determine the most appropriate type of procedure.
The OCRE 2024 Framework Agreement Guide for Institutions provides detailed information on the structure of the Framework Agreement, a description of the benefits and functions, how to adopt and start provisioning cloud services through one of the three procurement options.
OCRE 2020 framework agreement and transition to OCRE 2024
The OCRE 2020 structure ran from December 1, 2020 to November 30, 2024.Institutions participating in OCRE 2020 that have contracted services with a supplier by November 30 have a contract extension valid for a maximum period of up to four years. They can also opt for termination, by agreement, to establish a new contract under the OCRE 2024 Framework Agreement.In the case of Microsoft, only the benefits - granted by OCRE 2020 - are guaranteed until November 30, 2025.
Considering that some institutions have contracted cloud services under OCRE 2020, such extensions - if needed - can be relatively simple to implement and serve as an interim solution during any transition period to the new Framework Agreement.
