Overall context

The present study service request takes place in the context of the Digital Agenda for Europe1(hereinafter: DAE), which is one of the flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 Strategy2.The Commission will, pursuant to point 2.5 of the DAE, "ensure sufficient financial support tojoint ICT research infrastructures and innovation clusters, develop further eInfrastructures and establish an EU strategy for cloud computing notably for government and science".

The sought study will focus on clouds for science and public authorities. It will be used in developing cloud computing policies and actions that result in quality services to researchers, public sector employees and the public at large. The strategy should exploit the numerous opportunities to stimulate both supply and demand for cloud services in Europe, using science and government as lead markets.

A large number of studies, analyses and reports have been published recently on the opportunities and challenges arising from the use of clouds in different application domains and jurisdictions. The tenderers are expected to demonstrate a good understanding of the key issues; in particular, of the provision of science and government services in the context of the European Union.

Cloud computing can be defined in several ways. The study should take a broad approach to its definition, for example, the one proposed in the expert group report "The Future of Cloud computing"3 that defined cloud as an "elastic execution environment of resources involving multiple stakeholders and providing a metered service at multiple granularities for a specified level of quality (of service)." The study will consider the different types of clouds: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS).

ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/docs/calls/cooperation/ict/c-tender-spec-201112_en.pdf

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