Public values

In all its cloud initiatives, SURF prioritises public values crucial for the academic and research community:

• Openness and transparency: Promoting open standards, open-source solutions, and transparent practices in cloud service delivery. We believe that open-source solutions foster innovation and collaboration and can be effectively deployed on commercial clouds, while always considering security and cost efficiency.
• Data sovereignty and privacy: Ensuring that data is handled in compliance with Dutch and European regulations (e.g. GDPR), with a strong emphasis on data ownership and privacy.
• Security and trust: Implementing robust security measures and fostering a trustworthy environment for sensitive research data and critical educational applications.
• Sustainability: Promoting energy-efficient cloud solutions and responsible resource consumption.
• Collaboration and community: Fostering a collaborative ecosystem where knowledge and best practices around cloud adoption are shared among institutions.
• Exit strategy: We recognise the importance of an exit strategy when adopting cloud solutions, ensuring that institutions retain control over their data and applications and can migrate them if needed, in line with the principles of vendor independence.