The need for a Network Operation Center to operate and manage such huge network was main reason behind creating the Jordanian Universities Network company (JUNet). JUNet is a nonprofit company with limited liability founded in July 2003 by the Public Universities. JUNet is owned by the Public Universities of Jordan and Managed by a Board of Directors chaired by the President of the University of Jordan.
JUNet was created with the following objectives:
– To provide all the necessary components needed to construct and operate the network.
– Establish and operate the network that interconnects these Jordanian Universities to support goals of higher education and scientific research in Jordan.
– Provide information and communications technology services and support for the universities as needed.
– Design plans and policies needed for the usage of the network and to develop common strategy for network and applications usage.
– To research and implement applications that enhance the services provided using the network to support the goals of higher education and scientific research.
– To sign national and international treaties in ordinance with the company goals and objectives.
– To acquire financial support and necessary funds, grants, and loans to achieve its goals and objectives.
– To develop a common strategy (standards) for network usage and applications.
In addition to that, JUNet can be considered as a platform for satisfying the common needs and services of the Universities such as common software and licenses. As Indeed, JUNet has signed agreement with Microsoft and became an Authorized Education Reseller (AER) for different Microsoft software pools, and the program allows resellers to sell Microsoft products at Academic pricesto Qualified Educational users, such pools include:
– Business Solutions
– Developer Tools
– Office Suits
– Servers Suits
– Software Assurance
– Microsoft Windows
– Windows Server
Furthermore, JUNet created a basis for Jordanian universities to get use of the other resources and services provided by Microsoft, in order to facilitate their procedural implementations, and get benefits of different products and services, that are mainly line of subscription services which allow use of MS office software suits over the life of subscription, and that can be managed and configured through a simple online portal like Office 365 and Microsoft Azure.