Logicalis to launch HPC cloud service for researchers

University researchers have a new source of high-performance computing (HPC) available to them. Systems integrator Logicalis has released a new cloud platform that connects to the academic research network, JANET, offering a researchers access to  cut-price computing power.

HPC has been seen as a prime example of how cloud computing can benefit organisations, with several companies introducing HPC systems over the cloud,

The Connected Shared Research Cloud platform, which is based in the UK, will allow researchers to pool their funding to share high performance resources. The  Logicalis cloud will allocate that pool in real-time with each institution able to use resources available – possibly up to 100 percent. The system is built on the IBM Power7 platform, which optimises the amount of resources available to each institution.

Tim Marshall, CEO at JANET said, "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."

"University budgets are under severe pressure," added 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.