16 February 2010

SURF and Google sign three-year agreement

SURF has signed a three-year agreement with Google for Google Apps Education Edition.

Google Apps available using SURFfederatie

Utrecht 11 February 2010 - SURF, the Dutch collaborative ICT organisation for higher education and research, has signed a three-year agreement with Google for Google Apps Education Edition. Following the agreements of Open University and Utrecht University with Google, this online collaboration environment is now available for the entire Dutch community for higher education and research.

A striking feature is that the staff and students of institutions that use Google Apps can log on to Google Apps with the same account that they use at their institution, requiring no additional system interfaces between the institution and Google. This is possible because Google has joined SURFfederatie, the authentication platform for higher education and research. With Google Apps joining SURFfederatie it has become easier for the Dutch institutions for higher education and research to migrate to a cloud computing model, in which email and applications are provided online, making them available from any computer via a browser.

For SURF this agreement is an important step in its innovative collaborative infrastructure, which combines a wide range of online services and uses open standards and a secure authentication platform to provide access to these services. Jan Bakker, director SURFdiensten: "Especially the combination of free use of Google Apps and the link with SURFfederatie makes this a very attractive proposition for the Dutch higher education community."

SURFfederatie
SURFfederatie ensures that staff and students in institutions for higher education and research can use the account they use at their home institution to authenticate to service providers and content providers on the internet. This results in secure, efficient and easy access management for web-based services. Managing this access is no longer a time-consuming affair for the participating institutions. Providers of online services who join SURFfederatie potentially reach one million users in the higher education and research community in the Netherlands.

Google Apps Education
Google Apps allows you to share information and ideas in a simple manner. It provides a range of free applications supporting online communication, collaboration and publication, including email accounts on the educational institution’s domain. It is all hosted by Google, and it is then no longer necessary for the institutions to download, install or maintain hardware or software.