News

The acquisition of IT services is key to any public or private organisation and the advent of cloud computing requires innovation in the procurement of cloud services. Although cloud computing has become increasingly popular, it appears that potential customers, in the public sector in general and in the research community in particular, are facing barriers that inhibit the wider adoption of cloud services. This report presents a list of barriers to cloud services procurement identified through literature, in-depth interviews of IT managers surveyed over a period of 3 months, and input provided by the PICSE Task Force members as well as intergovernmental research organisations such as CERN and EMBL. The survey demonstrated that barriers to cloud service procurement mainly relate to the adoption of new technology (i.e. cloud computing) and the procurement process itself...

Speaking at the Datacloud Europe Event in Monaco on 3 June, Pearse O’Donoghue, the European Commission’s (EC) head of software, services and cloud computing, said the use of off-premise technologies can bring numerous economic and productivity benefits to both startups and enterprises. In the case of the former, cloud technologies can make it easier for new firms to get up and running without the need for upfront technology investments, which in turn paves the way for the creation of jobs in Europe and an overall increase in GDP. However, there are numerous legislative barriers standing in the way that the Commission is seeking to address with its ongoing Digital Single Market push. This is geared towards the creation of a single marketplace for digital services in the European Union (EU).

CERN has recently published a paper which outlines the establishment of the European Open Science Cloud that will enable digital science by introducing IT as a Service to the public research sector in Europe. The concept of open science and a European open science cloud seems to be widely accepted, but how to implement it remains largely unknown and Helix Nebula and the European Science cloud are examples that can be used to define the future structure...

Leaked copies of the upcoming Digital Single Market Strategy and its supporting Evidence file show the European Commission is ready to propose vast regulatory reforms that could affect everything from sales taxes and e-privacy to Internet searches and big data. A specific focus is given to the European cloud where the Helix Nebula Initiative plays a key role.