The CRD is a project under construction

Cloud Research and Data

A sovereign and secure trusted space for Research.

Logo IFREMER IFREMER Logo University of Montpellier University of Montpellier Logo University of Toulouse University of Toulouse Logo University of Reims University of Reims Logo University of Strasbourg University of Strasbourg Logo CNRS, tutelle de l'IDRIS IDRIS Logo Institut Polytechnique de Paris Institut Polytechnique Paris
Logo of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research Project powered by the Directorate General for Research and Innovation (DGRI)

Discover a federation of infrastructures providing simplified access to open “As a Service” services. Designed to support Research.
DISCOVER THE PROJECT

Marketplace XaaS

Unified CRD service portal

EduGAIN authentication. Users autonomously manage quotes, credits, quotas, groups and calls for projects.

IaaS

On-demand virtual machines and cloud networks.

PaaS

Private, managed Kubernetes clusters on demand.

SaaS / VRE

Jupyter, RStudio, Onyxia, CNCF tools and AI tools (LLM) on demand.

Storage-aaS

Hot NVMe, warm capacity storage, cold tape archiving.

OneData

Virtualisation, management and federation of data distributed across multiple sites on demand.

OneData Training

C4 Support: Cloud at the Centre Competence Centre

7 people dedicated to move-to-cloud, data management and security.

CRD on-demand service portal

A single point of access that hides the underlying technical complexity, giving researchers a smooth experience and decision-makers full control.

CRD Functional Architecture

Researchers
ESR admins

CRD on-demand service portal (Marketplace)

SSO EduGAIN Usage tracking Quotas & Teams


IaaS

PaaS

SaaS / VRE

OneData & Storage

Federated physical infrastructures (certified datacentres)

Montpellier (DROcc Est) Toulouse (DROcc Ouest) Strasbourg (IPHC) Reims (ROMEO) Paris (IDRIS/IPP) Brest (Datarmor)

Project CRD

Born from the need to reduce fragmented access to resources and to respond to the government “Cloud at the Centre” doctrine, Cloud Research and Data offers a powerful and sovereign solution, tailored to and driven by Research.

Security & Sovereignty 100% hosted in France within ESR.
Sustainability A sustainable full-cost model.
Performance Resources tailored for HPC, HTC and AI.
Federation Academic forces working together.
Cloud servers

6

federated sites

Catalogue Details

Users have the same identity across all services and sites.

No barriers, an open space.

IaaS

On-demand servers and virtual machines (VMs), networks and DNS directly instantiated by users (OpenStack).

Montpellier, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Reims, Paris Expert monitoring and 5/7 maintenance (StackHPC) Support and guidance from C4

PaaS

Automated “1-click” deployment of private, managed Kubernetes (K8s) cluster instances. On-demand “1-click” upgrades. Includes the Azimuth service sub-portal.

Montpellier, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Reims, Paris Homogeneous federal deployment Infra as Code Support and guidance from C4

SaaS / VRE

Ready-to-use software. Azimuth can launch JupyterHub or private ephemeral SLURM clusters. The project also integrates Flash Stack (by FGtech) for Onyxia and CNCF tools (ArgoCD, GitLab, Harbor, etc.) and generative AI services (OpenWebUI via Gamila).

Montpellier, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Reims, Paris Expert monitoring and 5/7 maintenance (StackHPC) Support and guidance from C4

Storage &
OneData

Multi-tier offer: NVMe for computing, capacity storage for warm data, and a federation of magnetic tapes for cold archiving.
All orchestrated by OneData-France, virtualising access to Data Spaces and finely managing metadata (FAIR approach).

Brest, Montpellier, Toulouse, Strasbourg, Paris Distributed cold vault Monitoring et MCO OneData/Cyfronet Support and guidance from C4
OneData Training

Cloud at the Centre Competence Centre C4

The C4 mission is to support skills development and projects within the CRD framework.

  • “Move to Cloud” programme

    Support from 8 dedicated engineers and DevOps coaches for high-quality migration of research projects.

  • Acculturation & Training

    Changing mindsets, providing deployment recipes and animating a community of practice.

  • Operational Watch

    A dedicated team to anticipate and test future technological developments.

Discover OneData training
Team technique

Pricing & Access

A sustainable, transparent economic model adapted to how research operates.

In the long term, the target operating model is as follows

Billing

  • Calculation based on auditable full costs.
  • Pay-as-you-go: payment by the hour of use.
  • Reservation of physical resources possible, ensuring resource availability
  • Pay once, use your credits across all services and all sites!

Access

  • Login through academic federated identities (EduGAIN, MyAccessID).
  • Manage service access and credits directly from the CRD service portal.

The Team

A federation supported by national governance bringing together universities, research organisations and DGRI.

Nolwenn Beaume

Administrative WG

IFREMER / Brest

Ahcene Belhadi

Engineer CRD Cloud

Engineer CRD Cloud, dev Waldur, C4

University of Montpellier / Montpellier

Anne-Cécile Belzon

Legal expert

Administrative WG facilitator

IFREMER / Brest

Jacques Benaioun

Engineer CRD Cloud

Engineer CRD Cloud, Project management tool WG, C4

University of Toulouse / Toulouse

Fabien Berini

Technical Director ROMEO

Cloud technical WG

University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne / Reims

Henri Brouchoud

Engineer Cloud CIRAD

technical committee, Cloud technical WG

CIRAD / Montpellier

Georges Da Costa

Vice President for Digital Affairs

Steering Committee

IRIT / Toulouse

Karine Daubas

Operational Director DROCC-Ouest

Administrative WG

University of Toulouse / Toulouse

Alexandre Dehne Garcia

IR DipSO

CRD lead, steering committee, operational committee, technical committee, Project Support Unit

INRAE / Paris

David Delavennat

Deputy Director, IDCS service unit at École polytechnique, IT Manager, Laurent Schwartz Mathematics Centre, UMR 7640

Technical committee facilitator

École polytechnique / Palaiseau

Rémy Dernat

Technical Director ISDM-MESO

Adminsys infra ISDM-MESO

University of Montpellier / Montpellier

Michèle Détournay

Security project manager

Operational Committee, Project Support Unit, Administrative WG

IDRIS / Paris-Saclay

Christophe Diarra

Engineer Storage

Tape technical WG

IDRIS / Paris-Saclay

Florence Draux

IR Euro-CC

Administrative WG co-facilitator

University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne / Reims

Marie-Pierre Drogue

Operational Director DROCC-EST

operational committee; Administrative WG

University of Montpellier / Montpellier

Yolain Erre

University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne / Reims

Pauline Fabries

Administrative manager SNUT

Administrative WG, financial co-lead

University of Toulouse / Toulouse

Michel Ferrero

École polytechnique / Palaiseau

Yannick Fitamant

Digital affairs officer to the Research Directorate, IT Manager, Centre for Theoretical Physics, UMR 7644, Systems Engineer, IDCS service unit at École polytechnique

Cloud/network technical WG

École polytechnique / Palaiseau

Claudine Gallone

Administrative officer IPHC

IPHC (CNRS) / Strasbourg

Céline Gaussen

Administrative WG

University of Toulouse / Toulouse

Sébastien Geiger

Engineer Storage

Tape technical WG

IPHC (CNRS) / Strasbourg

Guillaume Gay

Engineer France Bio-Imaging

OneData technical WG

University of Montpellier / Montpellier

Guillaume Harry

Technical Director IDRIS

Security WG

IDRIS / Paris-Saclay

Cédric Hillembrand

GT Tech cloud

CEMES - Toulouse / Toulouse

Anne Laurent

Vice President for Open Science at the University of Montpellier, Director of DROCC-EST, Director of ISDM, Director of INRIA-Montpellier

Steering Committee

University of Montpellier / Montpellier

Vincent Legoll

Cloud engineer for the European SIESTA project

Cloud technical WG

IPHC (CNRS) / Strasbourg

Joëlle Legrand

Administrative officer IDRIS

Administrative WG

IDRIS / Paris-Saclay

Julien Libourel

Cloud technical WG

LAAS -Toulouse / Toulouse

Jean-Yves Lopez

Director des information systems de l'University of Toulouse

Operational Committee, Project Support Unit

University of Toulouse / Toulouse

Benoît Morin

Technical Director DatArmor IFREMER

Operational Committee, Facilitator OneData technical WG, Facilitator Tape technical WG

IFREMER / Brest

Jean-Luc Oms

co-responsable team Index Lirmm

Deputy Technical Director, technical committee, cloud/network/OneData/tape technical WG

LIRMM - CNRS / Montpellier

Jérôme Pansanel

Technical Director IPHC, Technical Director France Grilles, Director of the SCIGNE cloud

Technical Director, operational committee, steering committee, technical committee, referent France Grille

IPHC (CNRS) / Strasbourg

Yannick Patois

Engineer storage

OneData technical WG

IPHC (CNRS) / Strasbourg

Vanessa Pierne

Administrative manager ISDM

Administrative WG, financial co-lead

University of Montpellier / Montpellier

Philippe Pinelli

System Administrator

technical committee, Cloud technical WG

University of Montpellier / Montpellier

Arnaud Renard

, Deep Learning Institute Certified Instructor & Academic Ambassador, France

Deputy Technical Director, operational committee, referent Mesocloud/mesonet

University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne / Reims

Philippe Saby

System Administrator

Cloud technical WG

University of Toulouse / Toulouse

Pierre Serodes

Director of the Research Infrastructure and Information Systems Department

Steering Committee

IFREMER / Brest

Sabrina Slimani

Administrative WG

IFREMER / Brest

Stylised silhouettes are used when a public photo of the person is not integrated.

FAQ

How is data protected?
The CRD hosts your data exclusively in France, in datacentres certified by research institutions. This guarantees the sovereignty of your data.
My team lacks cloud skills. Can you help us?
Yes. The Competence Centre (C4) and its “Move to Cloud” programme provide DevSecOps experts to coach your teams and modernise your scientific infrastructures.
Can a research institution or regional mesocentre join the federation?
Absolutely. The CRD is designed to be extensible. An institution can join the network as a user or as a resource provider if its infrastructure meets the security criteria (certified datacentre).