Enabling Access to Cloud Computing Resources for CISE Research and Education (Cloud Access)

Increasingly, data- and compute-intensive research and education efforts are benefiting from access to cloud computing platforms, which provide robust, agile, reliable, and scalable infrastructure. To better support this growing use of cloud computing resources, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) seeks to fund an entity that can serve as a principal interface between the CISE research and education community and public cloud computing providers. Through this solicitation, NSF will support an entity that will have multiple responsibilities, including: 1) establishing partnerships with the various public cloud computing providers; 2) assisting NSF in allocating cloud computing resources to qualifying CISE-funded projects; 3) managing cloud computing accounts and resources allocated to individual CISE projects; 4) providing user training and other support to CISE researchers and educators using cloud computing in their work; and 5) providing strategic technical guidance for CISE researchers and educators interested in using public cloud computing platforms.