Welcome
The NET+ AWS and NET+ GCP programs go far beyond simple contracting vehicles. They each have their own vibrant, engaging, ongoing conversations building communities of practice focused on informed, efficient, and effective use of the respective platforms. The NET+ Cloud Infrastructure Community Program was created to open these community conversations, trainings, and other benefits to any organization in the research and education community, regardless of how or if you contract with AWS and Google Cloud. For more details on the program and how to enroll visit the Cloud Infrastructure Community Program service page or email help@internet2.edu.
Your 'Cloudforce Multipler'
Most cloud teams are stretched pretty thin. You are serving multiple constituencies across multiple platforms. Often times there is far more in your portfolio than hyperscale technologies. Your plate is full, leaving little time to do the research and testing that new requests or challenges are due. Whether your cloud team is a team of one or ten, the knowledge and experience of the CICP peer community will multiply it manifold. The Cloud Infrastructure Community Program helps you build your knowledge network. It is your Cloudforce Multiplier.
CICP Benefits
A cornerstone benefit of the Cloud Infrastructure Community Program for subscribing institutions is participating in all the activities of the NET+ AWS and NET+ GCP* programs. Any member of a subscribing institution's community – staff, faculty, or student – is eligible to take part. Participants are added to an email discussion list where they are kept abreast of our regular and special events, projects, trainings, and more. These benefits include:
Community Conversations
- Regular Technology Share calls where campus cloud enablement professionals, cloud engineers, developers, and others meet to discuss their challenges, share lessons learned and collaborate to find the best answers for their institutions' AWS deployment. AWS solutions architects and DLT support engineers regularly attend and participate.
- Quarterly Town Halls welcome experts from AWS to present targeted topics to the community. Past Town Halls covered Ransomware, AWS Academy, Research Support Tools, Security Lake, Generative AI and more. We encourage subscribers to suggest topics we can work with AWS to bring to us.
- Quarterly Stratgey Calls are home to strategic and directional conversations. This is an opportunity to discuss the role of cloud in IT strategy with your peers. The intended audience is cloud and infrastructure leadership, but anyone working on your AWS team is welcome to attend. Once a year we invite AWS EDU leadership to join us and encourage campus infrastructure and IT leadership to come.
- Quarterly Tech Jams are technical deep dives on a specific issue facing one or more institutions. We put a couple of subscriber schools in the "hot seat" to lay out their challenge and ask technical experts from AWS to talk through the problem and its solutions. The rest of us watch and learn, tossing in our own questions as well. Example topics are building compliant environments, enforcing policies for FinOps best practices, bending Control Tower to your will, etc. The December Jam is devoted to a rapid-fire recap of the announcements coming out of the annual AWS re:Invent conference that are most relevant to the NET+ subscriber community. Always a highlight of the year.
Training – CLASS: Cloud Learning and Skills Sessions
- Annual vouchers to pay for CLASS sessions
- Priority registration for CLASS training
- Discounted registration to for-fee CLASS trainings
- CLASS program details
Data Benchmarking
Internet2 aggregates community usage data to provide subscribers with unique campus-internal insights and community-wide comparisons. The tools also help users identify community members with experience in specific technologies, creating opportunities to connect and learn from their peers. CICP subscribers who opt in to contributing their data to the project will become full participants in this valuable strategic program.
Cloud Consulting
CICP subscribing institutions looking for a technical soundboard for their cloud ideas, questions, or quandaries, have access to cloud professionals at Internet2. While they are not there to build out your cloud solutions, they can help you understand an existing on-prem workflow in cloud terms, discuss the pros and cons of cloud networking strategies, prepare for engagements with professional services provides, or even gather together topic-specific conversation with peers. They are there to help you get objective assistance with your cloud questions.
*NET+ GCP subscribers who have not signed the CICP or legacy IPS agreement are only eligible for NET+ GCP community activities and
Questions?
- Internet2 CICP Program Manager: Bob Flynn bflynn@internet2.edu
- Internet2 Service Management: help@internet2.edu
Community Resources
CICP Activities
See the full list of quarterly CICP gatherings and access their recordings, slides at other assets on the CICP Calendar page.
Participate in the online Community:
In addition to discussion at our regular Tech Shares and Quarterly meetings, Internet2 encourages subscribers to join the open discussions on the #aws and #google channels on the Higher Education Cloud Community Slack workspace. If you are not already a member, join here.
Key Program Updates
Subscribers may also review our AWS and GCP List Archives to look back at program updates and communications.
CICP Blog
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
The December 4th AWS NET+ Tech Share brought together members from various institutions to discuss recent AWS re:Invent announcements, upcoming events, and shared challenges in managing AI resources in higher education. Here's what you need to know from our last meeting of 2024.…
November 13th AWS NET+ Tech Share Recap: Digital Preservation, AI Initiatives, and Community Updates
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The November AWS NET+ Tech Share brought together participants from various institutions for discussions ranging from digital preservation strategies to artificial intelligence collaboration initiatives. Here's a summary of the key discussions:
Community Updates and Upcoming Events
Several important deadlines and events are approaching for the research and education community:
The NERCOMP Annual Meeting https://nercomp.…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The October AWS NET+ Tech Share covered infrastructure migration strategies, innovative AI implementations, and upcoming community events. Here's a summary of the key discussions:
Key Events
Webinar on NET+ AWS, NET+ GCP, NET+ Kion and CICP (slides https://drive.google.com/file/d/15mhVj3p0YJtlU4Co3GbBFYTcJU14viP_/view?usp=drive_link and recording https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lprtR-j9xrFFRMxNTwPGKuArjzIG2Oy_/view?…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The November AWS Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) Community of Practice meeting brought together institutions to discuss feature requests, recent updates, and share implementation experiences. Here's a summary of the key discussions:
Feature Request Process
The meeting kicked off with a discussion about streamlining features and documentation requests.…
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
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In our recent AWS Town Hall (recording https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XMQkYNsLIOVK4NXKWB6jUBJsT46nuJfe), we discussed a challenge that resonates across the higher education landscape: managing multiple AWS accounts with a focus on strengthening security and maintaining compliance.…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
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The October GCP NET+ Tech Share covered compliance challenges in GCP, SSL certificate renewal periods, and networking security issues in higher education.…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
DALL·E 2024-10-24 17.33.02 - A fun and zen-inspired 3D cartoon without any text or robot, representing the theme of navigating financial challenges and preparing for innovation. T.jpeg
The October AWS NET+ Tech Share covered FinOps challenges, account provisioning strategies, and an upcoming AI chatbot workshop. Here's a summary of the key discussions:
Recent Community Updates
The Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) Community of Practice continues to meet regularly.…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The October 2nd AWS NET+ Tech Share covered collaborative projects, disaster recovery solutions, and cloud migration experiences. Here's a summary of the key discussions.
Recent Highlights and Upcoming Events
NET+ AWS Tech Jam on AWS Marketplace (recording available https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1q69Wx7Z97Wb4mgNpARo4SnZcl2xs4M98?usp=drive_link)
Ongoing Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) Community of Practice meetings https://internet2.zoom.…
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
On September 24, 2024, the Google Rapid Innovation Team (RIT) hosted a Project Pitch Session, bringing together innovative minds from various institutions within the Internet2 NET+ GCP community. This session, which replaced the usual Tech Jam, was a follow-up to the initiative introduced during the GCP Strat Call on August 20 https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=310249217 by Google's Chris Daugherty.…
The NET+ AWS program recently concluded a comprehensive two-part series on AWS Private Marketplace, offering valuable insights for the research and education community. The series, which included a strategic call, office hours, and a hands-on Tech Jam, illuminated the potential of this innovative tool to streamline procurement processes in higher education institutions.
Key takeaways from the series include:
Private Marketplace enables institutions to curate catalogs of approved contracts,…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The September 18th NET+ AWS Tech Share dug into issues that keep the research and education cloud professionals up at night: measuring cloud maturity, justifying costs, and simplifying storage decisions. Here's what you need to know:
Cloud Elevation Index (CEI): Penn State's Approach to Benchmarking Cloud Journey
In the meeting, we briefly talked about Penn State University’s innovative internal project: the Cloud Elevation Index (CEI).…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The September 19th GCP Tech Share explored the highs and lows of Google Cloud adoption in higher education, from billing headaches to cutting-edge AI projects. Here's what you need to know:
GCP Experience: The Good and the Bad
The session kicked off with a discussion led by a business student from Indiana University,…
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
The September 4th AWS NET+ Tech Share covered a wide range of topics including the Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA), campus-wide help desk unification, cloud engineering recruitment, and the state of DevOps education in universities. Here are the key points from the discussion:
Recent and Upcoming Events
NET+ AWS Strat Call - Unlocking AWS Private Marketplace (recording https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HUdmxCf7oauSLbNFcFjPHopp9P289dQX?…
Demystifying AWS Landing Zone Accelerator: Insights from the September Community of Practice Meeting
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
On September 3, 2024, the AWS Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) Community of Practice https://internet2.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItduyhrzIsHdAkrc8rjT9Mn_9kkukAT9ws gathered for its monthly meeting, bringing together representatives from various institutions and AWS experts. The session focused on providing a comprehensive introduction to LZA, its architecture, and best practices for implementation.…
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
This week, the NET+ AWS program kicked off a two-part series introducing the AWS Private Marketplace to the research and education community. This innovative AWS service promises to be a useful tool for institutions’ contract procurement process.
The first session, attended primarily by university cloud enablement teams, provided a comprehensive overview of the AWS Private Marketplace.…
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Google's Public Sector Rapid Innovation Team (RIT) is reaching out to the Internet2 NET+ GCP community for innovative project ideas. Introduced during the recent GCP Strat Call on August 20 by Google’s Chris Daugherty (recording and assets https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1taULIzAmuJoV9xcx1sUEdQ2lIm1jpVEr?usp=drive_link), this initiative aims to help develop prototype game-changing solutions for higher education challenges.…
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
The August 21, 2024, AWS NET+ Tech Share gathered several institutions and organizations, including AWS, to discuss cloud migration strategies, technical updates, and resource optimization. Here's a summary of the key points and insights shared.
Recent and Upcoming Events
Several upcoming events and resources were highlighted:
AWS Landing Zone Accelerator Community of Practice https://internet2.zoom.…
Our August NET+ GCP Tech Share call was packed with updates, feedback, and exciting new opportunities. Here's a quick rundown of what we covered:
All of Us Update
We kicked the meeting off with a recap of our recent All of Us meeting https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=310249165, where we addressed challenges faced by higher ed institutions in managing cloud resources for this groundbreaking research program. Key issues included billing visibility, metadata tagging,…
The August 7th AWS NET+ Tech Share covered a wide range of topics from AWS Landing Zone Accelerator, recent news about AWS Code Commit, upcoming GenAI workshops, and account transfers to FourPoint. Let’s dive right in…
FYI, if you missed any community events around AWS, Bob and I are blogging the highlights https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=158663221#NET+AmazonWebServices(AWS)-CloudInfrastructureCommunityProgramBlog(AWSposts). Here are a few recent posts.…
August 6th marked the second Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) Community of Practice https://internet2.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItduyhrzIsHdAkrc8rjT9Mn_9kkukAT9ws meeting. If you missed the first meeting, you can catch up with our previous write-up https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=307429612. As expected, this session featured some very thought-provoking discussions. The meeting kicked off with a survey to determine who is currently using LZA and who is LZA curious.…
Do you manage an AWS environment or build workloads on AWS? If so, you probably have heard last year that AWS announced charges for public IPv4 usage https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-public-ipv4-address-charge-public-ip-insights/. As you know, addressing this change isn't straightforward—it often requires re-architecting or minimizing public IPv4 use.
Northwestern University attempted to tackle this challenge by bringing their own public IPv4 addresses into AWS. Matthew Rich,…
Last week I attended AWS IMAGINE https://aws-imagine.splashthat.com/?trk=999e1890-9edd-4c06-b26a-a4bdd0bb55ed&sc_channel=el in Austin, TX. Ignoring the travel difficulties I and many other attendees had as we were tossed about in the lingering flotsam of the Crowdstrike shipwreck, it was really a worthwhile trip and a great event.
If you have waded into the AWS conference-o-sphere you are probably familiar with re:Invent https://reinvent.awsevents.com/,…
From AI advancements to security best practices, the July 24, 2024 NET+ AWS Tech Share covered a wide spectrum of crucial topics. For those of you who couldn't make it to our session, we've got a nice recap to share with you. Let's dive into the key points!
We kicked things off with announcements of upcoming events:
AWS LZA Community of Practice' https://internet2.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItduyhrzIsHdAkrc8rjT9Mn_9kkukAT9ws#/registrations next meeting on Tuesday, August 6,…
Our partners at NIH brought to our attention a policy gap associated with AWS’s AI services https://docs.aws.amazon.com/organizations/latest/userguide/orgs_manage_policies_ai-opt-out.html that we believe all institutions ought to be aware of. We will dive into this issue in more detail in NIH’s write-up below. In summary, the issue lies in AWS’s default data collection policy, which is set to opt-in. We met with AWS, who confirmed NIH’s concerns and said they are working on it. In the meantime,…
Although the research and education community is largely multi-cloud, it doesn’t mean that all platforms are resourced equally. Some organizations fully support Google Cloud, some that focus on other cloud platforms tolerate its use, and others actively block it because they don’t have the staff and/or skills to set it up.
Internet2 is working with Google to create a GCP Admin Basic Training course.…
With active audience participation from several institutions and organizations for the entirety of the event, a single blog post may not do justice in summarizing our recent AWS Town Hall. However, I think we can list important key takeaways for you and your team to keep in mind. So, what exactly attracted so many people to attend a Zoom meeting? Two words: GenAI. Actually, that may be three words.
To break it down,…
The AWS Landing Zone Accelerator (LZA) Community of Practice (CoP) held its kick-off meeting last Tuesday (7/2), and it was a great success.
You might be wondering what the AWS LZA Community of Practice is. The AWS LZA CoP is a place for anyone in the research and education community to to ask questions, share ideas, and give feedback on the AWS LZA solution.
You may also wonder, "What is the AWS LZA?" or "Why should I care about it?" These questions were answered during the kick-off meeting.…