Catching Up on the Cloud: Summer 2022

By Sean O’Brien - Associate Vice President, NET+, Internet2

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Internet2 NET+ and Other Cloud Program Updates

At Your Service

It’s officially summer. We’re just three weeks into what meteorologists at the Old  Farmer’s Almanac predict will be a summer of hotter than normal temperatures across most of the country. The weather isn’t the only thing heating up. Worldwide public cloud end-user spending is on the rise. According to the latest forecast from Gartner Inc., spending on public cloud services will grow 20.4% this year to total $494.7 billion, up from $410.9 billion in 2021. 

Internet2 is here at your service to put this and other trends into context for the research and education community. It’s likely you will be allocating more funds toward the purchase of cloud services. Through our community-driven NET+ service evaluation process and cloud training opportunities, we’re here to help ensure these are wise investments in services optimized by your peers and designed to meet your unique needs. 

Service Evaluations Underway

Since our last edition of Catching Up on the Cloud, we launched service evaluations for Kion and Miro. Teams of community participants are working together to evaluate these services for inclusion in the NET+ portfolio. If you’re considering either of these services for your institution, please get in touch with us at netplus@internet2.edu. 

Service evaluation teams do important work on behalf of the entire community, and sometimes they win awards. We congratulate the Internet2 NET+ Google Workspace for Education service evaluation team on receiving the 2021 National Cloud Leadership Award – Overall Winner from E&I Cooperative Services. 

We Need Your Input

We are planning our 2022–2023 cloud training calendar, and we want to know what techniques, topics, and technologies are most in demand. Is it security, FinOps, networking, architecture, or something else? Multi-cloud or platform-specific? We are relying on you to set the priorities. Let us know where your biggest cloud training needs lie by responding to this brief survey. Please share this widely throughout your institution (central IT, distributed IT, research, networking, business office, developers, admins, etc.). We are hoping your responses will paint a comprehensive picture for us.

We remain committed to making the cloud better for research and education. Whether you’re in the market for cloud services or training on how to implement them effectively, we’re here at your service all summer long. 

Cloud Storage

• The Cloud Storage Working Group will resume its monthly meetings in July with a focus on storage management, specifically as it relates to Google Workspace for Education. Reach out to Dana Voss if you are interested in learning more.
• Storage Briefing Papers Now Available: In fall 2021, Internet2 and the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) co-sponsored two Executive Roundtables discussing issues around cloud storage in the research and education community. In preparation for these conversations, Internet2 Senior Cloud Consultant Oren Sreebny prepared two briefing papers to provide an overview of the topics covered during the roundtables. We are making those briefing papers available as a community resource.

NET+ Service Updates/Upcoming Events

• NET+ GWE: The Internet2 NET+ Google Workspace for Education program (Internet2 NET+ GWE) is entering its second year. Building on the adoption success of last year when more than 70 universities signed up for the service, the NET+ program worked with Google to develop an Internet2 member-only webinar series to showcase the key benefits of the NET+ GWE service.
  • Access recordings from previous webinars. 
  • Attend the final webinar in the series on July 13, “Drive Storage Management Tools Overview.”

• NET+ AWS Training: The next AWS Solutions Architect Associate Certification cohort will begin at the end of July and run through the end of September. Not only is it a great way to build the knowledge needed for the certification, but it is an opportunity to do it with a group of peers across higher education with regular discussions of common issues and solutions. The training is open to everyone in the research and education community. Seats remain. View more details and register now. 
• NET+ ServiceNow: Join us for “You Need Structure: A Panel Discussion with Internet2 NET+ ServiceNow Institutions on Governance,” a webinar on Wednesday, July 27 at 2 p.m. ET. During this discussion, you’ll hear from three panelists whose campuses combined have close to two decades of experience leveraging the capabilities of Internet2 NET+ ServiceNow to establish and implement governance structures, which facilitate resource prioritization and effective management of stakeholder relationships. Register now. 
• The Higher Education Cloud Forum is recognized as the leading event for strategic discussions about hyper-scale technology in the research and education community. The Forum, held by the higher education community for the higher education community, will be held this year at Washington University in St. Louis on November 8–11. Organizers will post the lineup of speakers and presentations on July 15. Registration will open on August 1.

Instant Replay

Getting IAM Done Together. Check out the recording from InCommon’s most recent IAM Online webinar. The journey of determining your path toward successful IAM implementation can be overwhelming at times. That’s where the Collaboration Success Program (CSP) comes in to help. Our presenters shared their experiences with how the program is helping them to achieve their IAM goals.

Keep Up With the Cloud

As always, we welcome your ideas and appreciate your contributions to our cloud programs!

Internet2 Program	Contact	Resources
Cloud Learning and Skills Sessions	class@internet2.edu	Read the FAQ. Watch the researcher spotlight.
Cloud Connect	cloudconnect_request@internet2.edu	Read CloudConnect News. Check out the new Networking for Cloud wiki.
Exploring Clouds for Acceleration of Science	Connect with us	Read the FAQ. See our latest project updates.
NET+ and the Cloud Scorecard	netplus@internet2.educloud-scorecard@internet2.edu	Read the latest NET+ news. Check out our NET+ wiki. Catch up on any I2 Online event recordings at any time.
Peer Exchange	networkdevelopment@internet2.edu	Learn more about the program.

Catching Up on the Cloud is a new feature that replaces the NET+ quarterly update to bring you all the latest Internet2 cloud updates. Whether you’re supporting the academic enterprise, research domain, or anything in between, these timely announcements and updates will help you with the best solutions for implementing cloud services at your institution.