Researchers at University of Bristol and Osaka University are embracing cloud-based high-performance computing. Through these new platforms, researchers are able to process large amounts of data and deliver results in a matter of days.
High-performance computing (HPC) platforms are traditionally run on-premise, but, recently, there have been advancements in cloud-based HPC services that are piquing the interest of university researchers. These next-generation cloud HPC solutions are a cost-effective HPC platform with performance that rivals on-prem solutions, but with all the advantages of the cloud.
Oracle Cloud Engineering Manager Chris Iwicki explained that for university researchers, cloud-based HPC brings numerous advantages that will help them accelerate their programs and deliver results more quickly. “Researchers can create clusters for running large-scale computations to accelerate the research in multiple branches of science and engineering like drug discovery, genomics, weather forecasting, and space exploration,” he shared in a recent webinar.
The University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and Osaka University in Japan are two major research institutions that are taking advantage of cloud-based HPC to expedite their research. Read on to learn more about how they’re using cloud-based HPC to solve today’s most important challenges.
University of Bristol
Researchers at the University of Bristol are striving to understand addictive sensations, how nicotine affects the brain, and how the receptors in the brain function in these situations and using cloud-based HPC to power their research. Dr. Christopher Woods, Research Software Fellow at University of Bristol, shared that the university was “able to process the large data sets obtained by the microscope on the cloud in a fraction of the time and at much lower cost than previously thought possible. We took a 90-day process and were able to complete it under 5 days with cloud-based HPC,” he shared.
Osaka University
For researchers at Osaka University, the creation of their supercomputer, OCTOPUS, allowed for the extension of “performance and scalability with high-performance computing (HPC) platform,” shared Iwicki. By using a hybrid-cluster system in OCTOPUS, it gave the University “1.463 petaflops of a peak performance on their cluster.”
With cloud-based HPC, delivering on research and driving results in a short period of time is possible. Iwicki highlighted that “solutions can be burst, scale, and responsive to researchers need,” which is a requirement when analyzing advanced data.
Click here to learn more about high-performance computing.
