By
Sean O’Brien - Associate Vice President, NET+, Internet2
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Celebrating Our Shared Successes in 2024
As 2024 draws to a close, the NET+ team at Internet2 is grateful for your invaluable partnership in furthering the NET+ program.
This year, we achieved significant milestones together, highlighting our dedication to supporting the adoption and use of cloud services within the research and higher education (R&E) community.
Major Accomplishments at NET+
New NET+ Services
We welcomed 1Password, EchoLabs, Globus, and Pathify as new programs to the NET+ portfolio, broadening the range of solutions available to meet community needs.
New Cloud Scorecard Website
The newly enhanced Internet2 Cloud Scorecard Finder website (now available for public preview) introduces an improved user experience, making it easier than ever for R&E institutions to discover, review, and select cloud solutions.
Launch of the Cloud Infrastructure Community Program (CICP)
The new CICP represents an opportunity for any institution — regardless of how or if they contract for cloud — to participate in all the activities and benefits of the NET+ AWS and NET+ GCP programs.
CICP subscriber benefits include regular technical discussions, shared projects, webinars, and topical deep dives, as well as training vouchers, cloud consulting, and access to our Data Benchmarking project.
Community and Impact
National Impact
In 2024, over 500 R&E institutions nationwide utilized more than 1,300 individual contracts to leverage the portfolio of services offered by NET+.
Thanking our Cloud Superheroes
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our 2024 Cloud Superheroes, who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and dedication to advancing cloud solutions in higher education.
This year, we celebrated Doug Streit, Ian Crew, Matthew D’Emilio, and our 2024 Cloud Superhero Award Winner, Sarah Christen. Their contributions continue to inspire and drive innovation across the NET+ community.
NET+ Webinar Series
The NET+ team has been hard at work these last few months to deliver a collection of webinar events called Discovering the Power of NET+ Services.
This nine-part series guided participants through the NET+ Programs, introducing them to NET+ Program Managers, showcasing community activities, highlighting special contract terms and higher education-focused pricing, and demonstrating how to maximize program benefits.
NET+ Community Events
The NET+ team was privileged to connect with so many community members at key events throughout the year. In addition to presenting, hosting meetings, and collaborating at many key events this year, the NET+ team led two distinctive events bringing together the community:
- The 2024 ServiceNow Higher Education Summit was held in May, a day before Knowledge24. This event featured discussions on ServiceNow’s applications in higher education, with presentations from subscriber institutions, roundtables, and updates on topics like the RiseUp program for digital skills training and the new Now Assist artificial intelligence (AI) tool. The next summit is scheduled for May 5, 2025, at Knowledge25.
- The 2024 Higher Education Cloud Forum took place at Stanford University in late April, and attendees celebrated its 10th anniversary. IT professionals gathered to share best practices for hyper-scale computing in R&E, featuring panels, lightning talks, and workshops. The next Cloud Forum will be at New York University from May 20-22, 2025, with proposals due by Dec. 20.
Building an AI Community
The Internet2 NET+ AI community has grown significantly in 2024 and has become a community hub for knowledge sharing.
Internet2 member institutions are invited to get engaged and check out the resources available on our community wiki page.
In December, the NET+ team launched our annual Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey to gather feedback from program participants. The survey will continue to be distributed to different cohorts over the coming months. Your participation is highly encouraged, as your feedback will help us understand how we can better meet your needs and improve NET+ programs.
Looking Ahead to 2025
Entering 2025, we continue our mission to provide innovative cloud solutions tailored to R&E needs.
At the start of the new year, we’ll continue to work on new offerings, including a private 5G and neutral host networking service, an AI Gateway service, and a third-party vendor risk management service. All of these efforts represent emerging needs and are being done as part of competitive procurement processes to ensure adoption by as many institutions as possible.
For those looking to enhance their cloud skills heading into the new year, we will launch CLASS training events in January. These workshops and courses cover essential topics like cloud security, AI, and cloud networking.
If you have any questions about our services or training in 2025, please reach out to us at netplus@internet2.edu.
Beyond these specific initiatives, we’re actively exploring emerging technologies where our community’s collective expertise and resources can create distinctive value.
When an institution chooses a NET+ agreement, they’re not just accessing carefully vetted services and negotiated agreements — they are investing in the community’s future.
These investments directly support new service evaluations, knowledge-sharing, training opportunities, and other initiatives that benefit the entire R&E ecosystem.
We are dedicated to maintaining our carefully curated selection of services and programs while remaining responsive to new opportunities that can significantly impact our community. This balanced approach, powered by cross-institutional collaboration, ensures that each addition to the NET+ services portfolio meets our rigorous standards while delivering meaningful benefits to R&E institutions and service provider partners alike.
Thank you for being an essential part of the NET+ community.
About the Author(s)
Sean O’Brien leads Internet2’s NET+ cloud service program working with institutions on the collaborative development, evaluation, and management of cloud services for the research and education community. He has worked in a variety of roles in higher education and the private sector focusing on cloud enablement, institutional research, and project management.