Cloud enables universities to share

Sharing has always been a good thing to do, and Janet, the joint academic network, is proof of that.

The UK-based service from Logicalis provides universities with the means to run cloud-based research by pooling funds and buying a shared part of high-performance computer (HPC) processing.

“UK Research is a key driver in the knowledge economy.” So if research is restricted by lack of funds then, “finding new models to exploit opportunities such as high-performance computing is critical.” said Tim Marshall, CEO at Janet (UK).

Built on the IBM Power7 platform the Logicalis cloud allocates the HPC pool equitably in real-time. Each institution can use up to 100% of the pool, and the research cloud ensures dynamic sharing of HPC platforms.

Everyone is a winner as sharing means costs are cut and academics have access to the resources they need, without having to build anything themselves.

"For those universities where research is a primary source of income, balancing the need for high-performance computing power with diminishing budgets puts their global competitive edge at stake." Added Tom Kelly, managing director of Logicalis.

There is growing competition from emerging researched-focused nations and the UK education research community needs to keep up. Logicalis believes the community can do this by combining HPC platforms and cloud-based collaboration.

Logicalis is passionate about Janet. The company hope that the launch of the Shared Research Cloud will entice private sector companies from around the globe to bring their research projects to the UK.

“The technology behind this platform is well understood and used in high computational environments, and in being able to share this resource across the research community, we are changing the cost model and competitiveness of an already strong sector.”