How it Works

Cornell IT has entered into an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft Azure to provide public cloud services to the Cornell community. The agreement allows Cornell faculty, staff, and students who are sponsored by faculty or staff to opt-in to use Azure cloud-based IT infrastructure services under a Cornell Master Account. Participating in the Enterprise Agreement has a range of benefits:

• The Cornell Enterprise Agreement was reviewed and approved by University Counsel
• It provides greater protections than the standard click-through license terms. (Data usage guidelines regarding which types of data can be stored in Azure can be found here.)
• Participants are provided with an Azure sub-account that is associated with the Cornell Master Account.
• Usage is direct billed, eliminating the hassles and restrictions of procurement cards or credit cards.

The responsibility of Cornell IT is limited to maintenance and oversight of the Enterprise Agreement, and monthly rebilling of Azure charges to units whose service consumption generated those charges.

What Is Needed To Participate In Cornell’s Azure Contract?

• An onboarding discussion with CIT, College Business Officer (CBO), IT Director and Security Liaison to discuss information regarding responsibilities and practices.
• Commitment from the College Business Officer to take responsibility for all Azure bills generated under the unit’s accounts.
• Acknowledgement of commitment to adhere to Cornell Security and data policies:
  •     5.10 Data Security
  •     5.4.2 Reporting Electronic Security Incidents
  •     4.12 Data Stewardship and Custodianship
  •     4.5 Access to Student Information
• Name and email address of responsible account holder.
• Accounting code for re-billing
• Must be Cornell staff, faculty, researcher, or students.

What Else Do I Need To Know?

• Information about Azure pricing, including a calculator to estimate cost of your services, is available online (scroll down the page). If you would like help using the calculator; the Cloudification Service team is available to assess your services to help estimate total cost.
• There are tools and services in Azure that allow you to monitor and alert on high usage. These tools should be utilized to prevent unexpected charges.
• Billing questions or disputes are the responsibility of the account holder but as the Master Agreement holder, CIT is available to aid in these efforts.
• Enterprise Support for Azure services is free under the Cornell contract.
• Advanced, for fee, services are available from Azure.
• Optional, for fee, Managed Hosting services and consulting for applications in the cloud will be available from CIT
• Responsibility for all activity occurring within a unit’s account is held by the account holder. Access granted, data distributed and maintenance of applications within the cloud are the responsibility of the account holder.
• CIT, Cloudification Services and IT Security Office, are available to consult on and review application infrastructure and configuration prior to deploying to ensure best practices.  This is a free service.
• If you are already using Azure services and wish to convert your current account to a sub account under the Master agreement send an email to cloud-support@cornell.edu