For the third time in a row, TIM Group’s global operator has been selected by GÉANT as OCRE 2024 Framework provider to offer cloud solutions and professional services to R&E Institutions in 39 Countries
Rome, 7 February 2025
Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, has been awarded OCRE 2024 Framework provider by GÉANT, the pan-European network and service provider for research and education, to offer cloud solutions and professional services to R&E institutions across all the 39 European countries where the scheme is implemented.
OCRE (Open Clouds for Research and Education) 2024 is the third iteration of GÉANT cloud frameworks that since 2016 have enabled and facilitated cloud adoption in the European research and education community. Through ready-to-use service agreements with cloud service providers, the framework – effective from February 2025 to 2030 – also covers public sector entities in addition to R&E institutions and offers a standardized contractual vehicle to ease the purchase of these solutions for over 25,000 organisations.
Already qualified as selected provider since the first GÉANT cloud framework, under the OCRE 2024 scheme Sparkle has been awarded as the highest ranked Supplier for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in all 39 Countries and for Google Cloud in 19 Countries. As a result, Sparkle will continue supporting Institutions in their cloud journey providing cloud solutions blended with professional services, thus reducing the cost and complexity of the transition to the cloud.
“We are very proud of being qualified among the highest ranking OCRE 2024 service providers” says Annalisa Bonatti, Vice President Enterprise at Sparkle: “This new award is a testament of Sparkle’s long-time commitment and success in offering the best cloud solutions to the R&E community, and it is also an encouragement to continue on this path and support the uptake of new digital services.”
Thanks to its multi cloud offering, Sparkle provides cloud services across multiple public and private platforms along with management consoles and connectivity services to connect customers’ on-premises cloud facilities to the major public cloud providers through private, high speed and secure connections. Cloud computing offers compelling advantages to students, researchers and institutions, making available virtualized resources ranging from compute, storage, database and networking to Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Security.
For more information about Sparkle’s cloud solutions for the European R&E community visit Sparkle for Research and Education.
About OCRE 2024
The OCRE 2024 framework is an EU-compliant cloud procurement framework, administered by GÉANT, the collaboration of European National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). It is the third iteration of GÉANT’s flagship cloud frameworks that since 2016 have fostered digital transformation across Europe by bridging the supply of innovative commercial cloud services with the demand and requirements of Research and Education institutions. Procured via a public pan-European tender and with support of the GN5-1 project, the OCRE 2024 Framework is set to be in place across 39 Countries for a period of five years, from February 2025 until 2030. The framework enables participating organisations to procure cloud services, in a compliant, easy and cost-effective way. Cloud service offerings, organised in national lots, are available to all the organisations that had expressed through their NREN their willingness to participate. The full list of OCRE 2024 participating institutions is available here: https://clouds.geant.org/ocre2024entities
About GÉANT
GÉANT is Europe’s leading collaboration on network and related infrastructure and services for the benefit of research and education, contributing to Europe’s economic growth and competitiveness. The organisation develops, delivers, and promotes advanced network and associated e-infrastructure services, and supports innovation and knowledge-sharing amongst its members, partners, and the wider research and education networking community.
About Sparkle
Sparkle is TIM Group’s Global Operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice – to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. A major player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa and the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 33 countries.
Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com
Media Contacts:
sparkle.communication@tisparkle.com
X: @TISparkle
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