Cloud Infrastructure Community Program

[Bob Flynn <>]

Colleagues, those paying attention will note that we are almost to the one year anniversary of the Cloud Infrastructure Community Program or CICP and it’s not been a bad year. One person who has been paying attention is my benevolent overlord, Sean O’Brien, and he pointed out that getting a newsletter out would not go amiss. So here you go! Let me know what you think is useful, what is not, and what you’d like to hear about.

Community News 

New Program Manager Joins the CICP Team

 

The NET+ AWS program is thrilled to announce that Chris Manly has been hired as the new Program Manager for Cloud Infrastructure & Platform Services.

 

Many of you will know Chris from hit shows such as the Higher Education Cloud Forum and the NET+ AWS Service Advisory Group. Chris has been helping people make better use of technology and the Internet for more than 30 years. He has spent most of that time in various roles at Cornell University, sometimes managing the technology and sometimes managing the people who manage the technology. In his spare time, he enjoys getting outdoors, doing DIY home projects, and working on and off stage with his local community theatre company.

 

Hiring Chris to manage NET+ AWS and NET+ GCP will allow Bob Flynn to spend more time expanding the benefits of the Cloud Infrastructure Community Program and the CLASS training program.

Past Events from Q3 

NET+ GCP Town Hall - Google Agentspace in EDU

In July, the NET+ GCP crowd gathered to learn more about Google’s new agentic AI tool, Agentspace. At this Town Hall we heard from Googlers about the features and functionality, and got a glimpse into the next steps to come. You can read all about it in this blog post. You can find the meeting recording here.

Cloud Innovation Center Project Beauty Pageant

In July, the NET+ AWS Strat Call featured the Cloud Innovation Center Project Beauty Pageant. You can read all about it in this blog post or watch the recording. The winner was the PDF Accessibility tool created by the ASU CIC. Efforts are underway to organize a barn-raising for that project, hopefully before the end of the year.

NET+ GCP Strat Call - What to do with your free Cloud Skills Boost Licenses

Last April Google announced it was giving public sector customers free access to its Cloud Skills Boost library. The process is a little involved. It requires your institution to get an invitation from your Google field sales rep (FSR) and you establish one or more license administrators. To better understand the mechanics of obtaining and using them, we invited Christian Michael from the Google training team to our August NET+ GCP Strat Call. He gave a great presentation and answered many questions (and many more via email since). You can read a write-up of the event or watch the recording and view Christian’s slides in the meeting resource folder.

Upcoming Events - Mark your calendars!

NET+ AWS Town Hall

• What: NET+ AWS Town Hall: Empowering Higher Education with AWS's Latest AI and Data Innovations from NYC Summit 2025
  Explore how AWS's announcements from the 2025 AWS Summit New York can transform your institution's approach to AI, data management, and student services. This session examines cutting-edge technologies specifically through the lens of higher education applications.
• Who: CIOs, CTOs, IT leadership, App and Agent Developers, Researchers, Security Professionals, and Academic Technologists
• When: TODAY at 11am PDT/2pm EDT
• Where: Full description and registration

NET+ GCP Tech Share

• What: Monthly open mic call to discuss whatever Google Cloud topic is on your mind.
• Who: Anyone from your institution working in GCP, whether that is the admin from the cloud enablement team, developer, DBA, architect, or no-coder building apps
• When: Thursday, September 18 at 10am PDT/1pm EDT 
• Where: https://internet2.zoom.us/j/82174251582 

NET+ GCP Tech Jam

• What: NET+ GCP Tech Jam: Architecting to Manage Cost Overruns
  A Tech Jam, as opposed to a Tech Share, is a technical deep dive where community members share some issue they’ve been struggling with and we bring in experts from the cloud provider to help them work through it. This month, it’s all about the Benjamins, or, more precisely, about not losing the Benjamins. We have UMich, Stanford, and CMU in the hot seat. You won’t want to miss it!
• Who: Cloud admins, developers, architects
• When: Tuesday, September 23 at 12pm PDT/3pm EDT
• Where: Full description and registration 

CLASS: AWS Security in the Cloud

• What: AWS Security in the Cloud
  A multi-week course of combined asynchronous/synchronous study and discussion that provides comprehensive guidance on securing an AWS environment, focusing on critical aspects such as Identity and Access Management (IAM), data protection, and incident response.
• Who: Security professionals with minimal working knowledge of AWS; Individuals looking to gain a foundational understanding of AWS security concepts
• When: Sept. 29 – Nov. 21, 2025 | Self-paced work | Weekly Cohort Meetings
• How Much: $250 for CICP subscribers
• Where: Full description and registration 

CLASS: Google Cloud Administrator Basic Training

• What: Google Cloud Administrator Basic Training
  A half-day training that equips IT administrators with the essential tools, strategies, and best practices for managing a Google Cloud (GCP) organization at an institutional level.
• Who: Cloud engineers; Administrators of other cloud platforms; Cloud enablement teams; whoever will be minding the store when your GCP admin takes a much-needed vacation.
• When: Nov. 13, 2025, 10.30 a.m. – 5.30 p.m. EST
• How Much: Free for CICP subscribers ($50 no-show fee deducted from voucher)
• Where: Full description and registration

 

Spend Analysis Webinar

Come learn about a unique no-cost benefit to NET+ AWS subscribers. Subscribers can get a financial analysis of their institutional AWS spend, including a cost savings report. Find out how you can optimize your cloud spending with a financial playbook for cloud success. Join FinOps specialists Strategic Blue and Four Points Technology to discover strategies for maximizing your cloud investments, ensuring you are driving cost-efficiency throughout your cloud journey without compromising on innovation and technical flexibility.        

• What: NET+ AWS partner webinar: Maximizing Your Cloud Investments: A Financial Playbook for Cloud Success
• When: Thursday, November 13 at 9am PST/12pm EST  
• Where: Mark your calendars for now. Webinar registration details will follow. 

 

For questions or ideas about the NET+ AWS program, feel free to reach out using the contact information below. We're always interested in hearing how we can make the program more valuable for your institution.

Membership updates

 

As this is the first official CICP newsletter, I will be a bit liberal in my use of the word “new”

and list the institutions that have recently joined or upgraded their CICP membership.

• Cornell University
• Drexel University
• Kennesaw State University
• National Institutes of Health
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
• University of Minnesota
• University of Nebraska System
• South Dakota State University 
• Stanford University

 

When you see someone from these institutions on a call or in a CLASS session, welcome them to the community!

NET+ Program Resources

• CICP Program Page: High-level overview of CICP benefits, subscription fees, and a full list of subscribing institutions
• CICP Wiki: A comprehensive list of Cloud Infrastructure Community Program benefits, recap blog posts of past CICP events, and links to additional program resources
• CICP Calendar: Listing of past and currently scheduled future quarterly calls from the NET+ AWS, NET+ GCP, and other CICP-related events, including links to recordings, slides, and session recap posts.
• CICP Voucher Program: Explanation of the CLASS vouchers available to all to buy, but given each year to CICP institutions as a program benefit. Learn more about them and how to redeem them to get your steam into CLASS training and raise your institution’s Cloud IQ.

 

Bob Flynn (he/him/his)

Sr. Program Manager

Cloud Infrastructure & Platform Services

Internet2 NET+ Services

 || 812.558.0323