Cloud Computing
CENIC Offers Infrastructure-as-a-Service Tools
The Corporation for Education Network
Initiatives in California (CENIC) now offers a suite of
infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud services for member institutions in
California's research and education community, eliminating the need to conduct
local procurement processes for these services.
The California Community Colleges, the California State University and the
University of California systems participated in the process of selecting CenturyLink, FireHost and Verizon as CENIC's cloud service providers, making it easier for CENIC member
institutions to adopt cloud services for research, education and administrative
activities.
"Our colleges now have the ability to access superior virtual data center
services directly peered with the CENIC network," said Tim Calhoon, executive
director of the California Community Colleges Technology Center, in a prepared
statement. "The speed and security afforded by this arrangement will enable the
colleges to further assure that the information and online applications used by
over 2 million community college students, faculty and staff are always
available."
IaaS services available through CENIC include:
- FireHost's fully managed secure cloud infrastructure featuring
multilayered security with IP reputation filtering, DDOS prevention, Web
application firewalling, IDS/IPS and encryption;
- CenturyLink Cloud services, including customizable virtual servers,
cloud blueprint executable templates, and network and application services;
and
- Verizon enterprise-class cloud computing and data center solutions,
including a managed enterprise cloud computing platform, virtualized
disaster recovery and online-offsite data backup and restoration
capabilities.
CENIC is a nonprofit organization formed to provide networking services to
California's education and research communities.
Further information about cloud service available to CENIC member
institutions can be found on the CENIC site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].