Sovereign European cloud for research and education

OCRE (Open Clouds for Research Environments) is GÉANT's cloud procurement framework for European research and education. The OCRE 2024 framework, GÉANT's third generation, started on 3 February 2025 and runs for about five years. It lets eligible institutions acquire vetted commercial cloud services quickly and compliantly, without running their own lengthy public tender.

Over 32,500 research and education institutions across 39 European countries are eligible, organized in three groups. Group A covers NREN members with a research and education focus (best terms, including data egress waiver). Group B includes university medical centers, libraries, museums, and private universities. Group C covers NREN-affiliated government bodies. In Switzerland, institutions access the framework through SWITCH.

VSHN is the sole Exoscale reseller in the OCRE 2024 catalogue, meaning there is exactly one path to Exoscale cloud through the framework. The offering spans Infrastructure as a Service (compute, storage, GPU, networking), Container and Platform services (Exoscale SKS, VSHN Managed OpenShift, APPUiO), and Software and managed applications. VSHN is ranked number one for Exoscale in all countries it serves, including Switzerland.

Exoscale is the European cloud provider whose infrastructure underpins the offering, with data centers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia, and Bulgaria. Exoscale delivers the compute, storage, GPU, Kubernetes (SKS), and DBaaS layers, while VSHN handles managed operations, platform services, and customer support across most of Europe.

VSHN and Exoscale are Swiss and European companies with no US parent company, so customer data is not subject to the US CLOUD Act. This addresses the Schrems II concerns that arise when research data leaves European jurisdiction, and Exoscale offers a guaranteed data location so you always know where your workloads run.

The infrastructure and operations are ISO 27001 and ISO 27018 certified, ISAE 3402 audit reports are available, and a GDPR-compliant Data Processing Agreement is provided free of charge. These controls already serve regulated sectors including government, banking, healthcare, and education, easing institutional procurement and data-protection review.

VSHN operates managed services 24/7, including automated backups, monitoring, and managed updates. Managed offerings come with service level agreements up to 99.99% availability. For self-managed Exoscale infrastructure you keep full control, and you can add VSHN AppOps for operations support on top of your own deployments.

Through the OCRE 2024 framework there is no minimum order quantity, no turnover commitment, and no required contract length. Services are billed hourly and invoiced monthly in EUR or CHF, with framework discounts on Exoscale services. Exoscale waives all data egress charges to GÉANT and connected NRENs (the framework requires only 15% waiver, but Exoscale provides 100%). VSHN provides written cost estimates in EUR or CHF on request.

OCRE eliminates the 6 to 18 months a standalone public tender typically takes. VSHN is ranked number one for Exoscale in all countries it serves, so institutions can use the cascade method (direct award) and place an order without a competition round. For projects under EUR 75,000, a desktop mini-competition can be completed via spreadsheet using GÉANT's pre-scored evaluations. In emergency scenarios such as disaster recovery or ransomware, call-off can be completed in as little as two working days.

Contact VSHN through the form below describing your institution and intended workloads, and we will provide more information and a trial voucher so you can evaluate the services. Eligible institutions sign a master contract, receive admin accounts, and then self-serve through the web console, API, Terraform, and Ansible to create projects and manage users.