SCIENCE

International solutions provider unveiled its JANET- Connected Shared Research Cloud platform. A shared high performance computing resource, directly connected to the JANET network, the platform enables Universities to access more real-time research processing than they can afford individually, releasing more budget for academic research and making them more competitive in the world marketplace.

The service, located in the UK, and built on the IBM POWER7 platform, enables communities of researchers to pool their funding to buy a shared slice of high performance computer (HPC) processing. The Cloud will then dynamically allocate the HPC pool in real-time, with each institution able to use 100% of the pool if available.  Design of the POWER7 platform means that even during busy periods, shared users will have a high probability of gaining access to nearly all available shared resources, dramatically cutting their costs of accessing massive processing capability when owning and operating their own environments

"University budgets are under severe pressure," comments Tom Kelly, Managing Director of Logicalis UK, "and for those 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.  Sharing a large slice of high performance computing, across a network they trust, offers a major opportunity for academics running research projects to access the computing resources they need at a fraction of the cost of building it themselves.  At a time when researchers in UK Universities have to compete for work in the global market, Logicalis' investment in this shared research HPC platform will give the UK economy a valuable asset to protect and grow what is now seen as a critical macro-economic stimulant.  This innovation between the IT and HE sectors will benefit the UK research sector and the UK economy as a whole."

Logicalis Shared Research Cloud is one of a new range of services offered by Logicalis to the education community through its connection to the JANET network.  Logicalis recently announced availability of its Intel Cloud platform, and plans to launch a Research Collaboration service in the autumn of 2011. This will enable researchers to work more collaboratively on projects both internally and within the wider research ecosystem.  Logicalis believes that by combining HPC platforms and cloud based collaboration, the UK HE research community will be able to better compete with the growing competition from emerging research focussed nations.

Tim Marshall, CEO at JANET(UK), notes, "UK Research is a key driver in the knowledge economy, and when funding is constrained finding new models to exploit opportunities such as high performance computing is critical. In this offering Logicalis have created one such important opportunity."

Simon Daykin, CTO at Logicalis UK, comments, "The UK has a unique asset in JANET, one that is undervalued and underestimated outside of the sector, and with the launch of the Shared Research Cloud, we hope to be able to demonstrate the UK is the place where private sector companies around the world should bring their research projects.  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.  

"Our HPC platform can support UNIX and LINUX HPC workloads and its unique workload sharing and optimisation technology maintains a high probability that even when a slice of processing is shared amongst three, four or more projects, each one will access near 100% of the shared pool.  Cloud computing has a reputation of being a slightly nebulous concept, but if the industry needs a concrete example of how sharing resources can create massive efficiencies, then the Logicalis Shared Research Cloud is it."