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João Pagaime
Area Director
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What is it?

The Géant Association, 40 NRENs(National Research and Education Networks) and 20,000 European Higher Education institutions have collectively negotiated a pan-European framework agreement - for a period of 4 years - which establishes the terms (price, quality, quantity, obligations and procedures for ordering services) with the most important providers of IaaS+ Cloud Services, and where the Portuguese NREN - FCCN - is responsible for expediting the necessary contracting procedures between the Confirmed Entities and the providers.

Who is it intended for?

The OCRE Framework Agreement is intended for entities that have expressed, in a timely manner, by 30 July 2019, their wish to participate.

Advantages of the OCRE Framework Agreement

  • Ease of access, simplicity and reduced waiting time for the enjoyment of services as well as contractual procedures;
  • Ready to usecontractual templates
  • Better prices by aggregating demand across multiple countries;
  • The same prices regardless of the quantity purchased;
  • Reduction of procedural waiting times and litigation risk;
  • Support from the Portuguese NREN, FCCN, at all stages of the process
  • Ensuring that data is handled in accordance with European and national standards;
  • Limit on network traffic costs;
  • Direct peering, high capacity and low latency;
  • Single sign on (SSO) and SAML user authentication across all cloud services connected to the Géant data network, reducing network traffic costs.

Service Features

The offer of the Framework Agreement is on cloud IaaS+ services is made by IaaS service providers and on the respective PaaS and IaaS services that they may have in their business.

Procedures

There are 3 methods for contracting services: Direct Adjustment, Desktop Minicompetition(DMC) and Regular Minicompetition(RMC).

When the customer's requirements can be met by multiple suppliers, a direct award cannot be made unless duly substantiated by one of 3 reasons, Economic, Technical or Copyright Ownership.

ocre proceedures fccb FCCN Computing Unit
Procedures for contracting services

DMC
When the entity's requirements can be satisfied by several suppliers a Direct Award cannot be made. The entity submits the requirements to the, reopening of the competition - having to invite all suppliers in the lot, except those that do not meet the requirements - using the Proposal and the Online Cost Calculator of the reseller and the evaluation criteria, the same that served the reseller selection procedure to the AQ, according to weights, balloted in a range, defined by the A.Q. OCRE. No new inputs are allowed to suppliers.

RMC
When the requirements cannot be satisfied by Direct Award or a Desktop Mini-competition the entities can organize a Regular Mini-competition reopening the competition and require more inputs from suppliers.

Update - April 2021

In April 2021 the Framework Agreement will be released to the entities that have joined the OCRE.

- The OCRE Framework Agreement, by Cloud Service Delivery Manager
(60 Minute Session)

- Suppliers' next steps
(3 sessions of 60 minutes, of 9 platforms, of the 8 suppliers selected to operate in Portugal). Dates will be announced in due course, on this page, by email and via the FCCN newsletter.

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