OCRE Cloud for Albania

13 research and education institutions in Albania can procure sovereign European cloud services through the OCRE 2024 framework.

13Eligible institutions
RASHNational research network
SofiaDatacenter bg-sof-1
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How institutions in Albania access OCRE cloud

Institutions in Albania access the OCRE 2024 framework through RASH, their National Research and Education Network (NREN). VSHN is the sole Exoscale reseller in the OCRE catalogue and ranked number one in all countries it serves. Institutions can use the cascade method (direct award) to place an order without a competition round.

Exoscale datacenter closest to Albania: Sofia (bg-sof-1). Guaranteed data location, no US CLOUD Act exposure. All data egress to GÉANT and connected NRENs is waived.

Get started

Contact VSHN to request a trial voucher, get a cost estimate, or start a call-off agreement for Exoscale cloud and managed services in Albania. Your NREN cloud team at arjanxhelaj@rash.al can help with framework eligibility questions.

Eligible institutions (13)

Agricultural University of Tirana
Albanian University
Barleti University
College of Europe | Collège d’Europe (Tirana Branch)
European University of Tirana
Luarasi University
Medicine University of Tirana
Polis University
Polytechnic University of Tirana
University "Aleksander Moisiu” Durres
University "Aleksander Xhuvani” Elbasan
University of Tirana
University “ Ismail Qemali” Vlore

Exoscale cloud services

The infrastructure you procure through OCRE, run by Exoscale in the zone you choose. All of it carries the framework discount on compute and storage, and free traffic to GÉANT and connected NRENs.

Compute Virtual servers billed per second, from 0.5 to 225 GB RAM, with AES-256-XTS encryption at rest by default. GPU servers NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000, A40, A30, A5000 and V100 for training, inference and HPC, billed per second. Available as standalone instances or as GPU node pools inside an SKS Kubernetes cluster. Block storage NVMe volumes from 1 GiB to 10 TiB, 5,000 IOPS with no IOPS charge, snapshots, and Exoscale's 99.95% SLA. Object storage S3-compatible in all 8 zones, versioning, object lock, lifecycle rules, and an Archival class on request. Managed databases Eight engines on dedicated VMs, from PostgreSQL with pgvector to Thanos for long-term metrics. Kubernetes (SKS) Scalable Kubernetes Service with a free Starter tier and a Pro control plane under Exoscale's 99.95% SLA. GPU node pools attach to a cluster, so ML pipelines schedule onto GPUs like any other workload. Networking Private networks and VPC at no charge, security groups, elastic IPs, load balancing, free IPv4 and IPv6. DNS and CDN Anycast DNS across 40+ servers and an Akamai-backed CDN in front of your object storage buckets.

VSHN managed services, delivered through Servala

These are operated by VSHN through Servala, the open-source app store for managed services, and they are a different product from Exoscale DBaaS above. Exoscale runs its database engines on its own price list and SLA; VSHN runs everything below with 24/7 support, automated backups, managed updates, and SLAs up to 99.99%, and the same catalogue runs on Cloudscale, SWITCH, and on-premises. Several databases are available both ways, so ask us which fits: Exoscale DBaaS is usually cheaper, and Servala adds operations and support around it.

Databases and messaging

Also available as Exoscale DBaaS, where Exoscale operates them directly and uses its own product names: Exoscale's in-memory engine is Valkey, the VSHN-operated one is Redis.

Managed PostgreSQL Research databases with PostGIS for geospatial data and pgvector for AI embeddings. Managed MariaDB MySQL-compatible relational database with Galera clustering for teaching and departmental systems. Managed Redis In-memory cache and message broker, operated by VSHN. Exoscale's own DBaaS equivalent is Valkey, which replaced its Managed Redis in March 2025. Managed Kafka Event streaming for sensor networks, instrument data, and pipelines that cannot lose a message.

Developer tooling

No Exoscale equivalent. VSHN operates these on Exoscale infrastructure.

Managed GitLab CLOUD Act-free source code hosting, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps platform on Swiss infrastructure. GitLab for Education pricing applies to qualifying institutions. Codey (Managed Forgejo) European code collaboration platform. Sovereign alternative to GitHub, starting at CHF 39 per month. Managed Keycloak Identity management with eduGAIN and OpenID Connect federation for single sign-on across NREN networks. Managed OpenBao Secrets management and encryption for compliance-sensitive research environments, with Swiss HSM backing. Managed Nextcloud File sync, sharing, and collaboration for research groups, with data kept in the zone you choose.

Platforms

Container platforms. Exoscale SKS is the self-managed alternative.

VSHN Managed OpenShift Dedicated Red Hat OpenShift clusters for containerized research workloads and HPC environments. APPUiO Cloud Kubernetes namespace-as-a-service, billed by effective resource usage, with no cluster to run.

Request a trial voucher

Interested in using Exoscale or VSHN-managed services in your research or education institution through OCRE 2024? Tell us about your workloads and we will follow up with more information and a trial voucher.

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