National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) have long been at the vanguard of development and innovation in the fields of IT and networking with many services that are considered mainstream having been created or trialed in the R&E community. Now NRENs expand their scope to encompass cloud services. Different NRENs take different views on their role vis-a-vis the cloud, from NRENs that decide to build and provide cloud services themselves, to others that prefer offering a wide selection of services from existing providers, while yet others are positioned in the middle of the spectrum. Moreover, NRENs and the GEANT pan-European network take an active interest in recent technologies such as Software Defined Networks, and the way these can enable and integrate cloud services.

The session will bring together experts and representatives from NRENs, the industry, and the GEANT project, to present their views and experience on these topics and who will present the way Cloud Computing transcends national boundaries and can benefit users from the Research and Education community at the European level.