Memorandum of Understanding
Between
OCRE
And
EOSC-hub
projects
TITLE
between:
OCRE , a project receiving funding from the European Commission (Grant Agreement 824079), represented by GÉANT Vereniging (Association), which is registered with the Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam with registration number 40535155 with the office at Hoekenrode 3, 1102 BR Amsterdam, The Netherlands ( the OCRE Coordinator ) and
EOSC-hub , a project receiving funding from the European Commission (Grant Agreement 777536), represented by STICHTING EGI (EGI Foundation), established in Science Park 140, Amsterdam 1098 XG, Netherlands (the EOSC-hub Coordinator).
Taking Into Account That:
The Open Clouds for Research Environments project (OCRE), aims to accelerate cloud adoption in the European research community, by bringing together cloud providers, Earth Observation (EO) organisations and the research and education community, through ready-to-use service agreements and €9.5 million in adoption funding .
EOSC-hub is a project building tools for the EOSC initiative that aims at offering researchers and professionals in Science, Technology, Humanities and Social Sciences a virtual environment with open and seamless services for storage, management, analysis and re-use of research data, across borders and scientific disciplines by federating existing scientific data infrastructures, currently dispersed across disciplines and the EU Member States.
RECITALS
Whereas
- GÉANT, on behalf of OCRE (Open Clouds for Research Environments), leads and coordinates the establishment of a Framework Agreement for the procurement of Cloud Services, which is a major project funded by the European Commission.
- EGI.eu, on behalf of EOSC -hub, includes in its mission providing researchers and professionals in Europe access to the Cloud as a major contributor to the overall EOSC initiative
- OCRE and EOSC-hub wish to further promote their respective objectives by providing for appropriate collaborations and interconnections among their members.
AGREEMENT
Now, therefore, OCRE and EOSC-hub agree to the following principles:
EXPECTATION –
OCRE will purchase 25 X €2,000 - cloud vouchers for distribution to researchers by EOSC-hub (but on behalf of the earth observation stream) to facilitate early adoption of the Cloud via the current GEANT IaaS framework.
The following suppliers of these services were selected by means of a mini-competition between all those represented on the framework –
- Micromail (9 vouchers)
- TI Sparkle (10 vouchers)
- CloudSigma (6 vouchers)
The OCRE project will provide voucher numbers at the start of the academic year (September 1 st , 2019).
EOSC-hub will award these 25 vouchers to researchers identified by the OCRE earth observation stream (RHEA; EARSC; ESA). RHEA will make a list of researchers available to EOSC-hub.
Neither GÉANT nor the OCRE project will be held liable for any costs incurred in the consumption of services beyond the value of the voucher redeemed.
The Researcher (recipient of the voucher) will indemnify GÉANT by taking full responsibility for their actions whilst using the cloud funded by the voucher. It is assumed that the researchers will accept voucher terms and conditions directly with the service provider. In case EOSC-hub needs to provide or collect any additional information, GÉANT will inform EOSC-hub without a delay.
Vouchers will need to be redeemed (cloud consumption initiated) before 31 st December 2020 when the current IaaS framework ends.
EOSC-hub agrees to report back to the OCRE project with the following information at the end of each month regarding voucher distribution –
Voucher number
Supplier
Institution/Location
Research discipline
Brief description of workload (compute/storage)
Reports will initially be sent to gary.james@geant.org on the 15 th of each month. It is envisaged that during the project EOSC-hub will be required to upload this data monthly to a database maintained by the OCRE Project.
In addition, questionnaires to individual voucher recipients will be distributed by EOSC-hub who will return the results to OCRE who will perform an analysis of the survey which will be shared with EOSC-hub and across the OCRE consortium.
The OCRE project reserves the right to select another channel for the redistribution of any unassigned vouchers at the end of March 2020. This will allow time for all vouchers to be assigned and used by the end of the framework, ensuring no unclaimed funding.
- Entry into Force, Duration and Termination
This MoU enters into force on the date of its signature by both parties and remains in effect unless terminated by either party with advance written notice to the other. It shall terminate one (1) year after the date of such notice. Notwithstanding its termination, the provisions of this MoU shall survive to the extent necessary to permit an orderly settlement of business between the parties and to bring on-going activities to a proper close;
- Settlement of Disputes
The parties confirm that they shall exercise good faith efforts to resolve any dispute between the parties arising from or in connection with this MoU through mutual negotiation and agreement;
- No Liability
For avoidance of doubt, no breach of an obligation contained in this MoU or performance or non-performance under this MoU shall give rise to any monetary liability by one party to another.
- Communication
Any communications between the two parties will initially need to include the following named persons.
OCRE
David Heyns – david.heyns@geant.org
EOSC-hub
Yannick LEGRÉ, Managing Director, EGI.eu - yannick.legre@egi.eu
Agreed to By:
Dated 23 rd day of September, 2019.
For OCRE
_________________________________________
David Wrathmall
Finance Director, GÉANT
For EOSC-hub
________________________________________
Yannick Legré
Managing Director, EGI.eu