IBM and the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) today announced that they have entered the production pilot phase to create a cloud-based technology platform that will provide researchers and students with flexibility, accessibility and speed to optimally utilise the university’s high performance computing (HPC) environment. The platform will also provide a self-service interface for users and automated provisioning in HPC environment leveraging existing virtualisation.
Singapore’s infocomm and communication technologies (ICT) masterplan for schools is now into its third phase (2009-2014), and continues the vision of the first two masterplans by developing better interactive environments to strengthen students’ thinking, and upgrading schools’ infrastructure to keep up with ICT developments. As such, it is opportune now to leverage advances in education technology – cloud computing, open source systems, virtualisation, and analytics – to help refresh outdated infrastructures with new functionalities.
In May 2010, NTU announced a collaborative effort with IBM to research and develop a platform for the convergence of cloud computing and HPC by leveraging NTU’s High Performance Computing Centre (HPCC), one of ASEAN’s fastest and greenest supercomputer-to-date. This HPC-as-a-Service on a cloud platform combines the strengths of cloud computing and HPC to establish a dynamic and high-performance infrastructure.
The researchers and students at NTU’s School of Art, Design and Media (SADM), and School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMC) work on large-scale rendering, animation, molecular modelling and engineering simulation projects that are extremely compute and data intensive. It is essential that the compute resources and HPC clusters for these projects are provisioned and configured with the necessary operating system and software images on-demand, and with agility. This speed becomes even more critical during peak periods of project submission, when extensive demand within a short time period may limit accessibility to HPC clusters.
“This scenario makes SADM and SPMC excellent candidates for deriving immediate benefits from the HPC-Cloud environment,” said Professor Soh Yeng Chai, Associate Dean of College of Engineering, NTU. “Through the HPC-Cloud convergence, both faculty and students at the two schools will gain easy access to cloud-based HPC resources for their compute and data intensive projects on predefined virtual private clusters based on a self-service model. The added speed of provisioning HPC clusters will also mean that researchers can have access to their HPC clusters, and reconfigure if needed much more quickly than in the current system, thereby reducing their overall cycle time to complete a project.”
In time, this HPC-Cloud environment will provide capabilities and resources to meet high computational requirement for a wider pool of researchers and students at NTU. With the supercomputing capabilities offered through the HPC-as-a-Service platform, NTU will be able to enhance this platform for leading-edge research and innovation in interesting domains like analytics, modelling of volcanic activities to understand the earth’s tectonic movements, study of the water treatment processes, and the simulation of complex flight dynamics.
The new platform is also expected to facilitate cross-faculty research in future. “For example, earth science research involves professors from science, engineering, visualisation and animation,” Professor Soh noted. “For environmental and water technology research, expert knowledge from engineering, science and perhaps economics are required.”
“We are pleased with the announcement of the first project under IDA’s collaboration with IBM’s Cloud Lab,” said RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA). “The cloud lab provides an integrative capability that creates and prototypes innovative and repeatable solutions. This can help quicken the harnessing of research results and the deployment of solutions by industry, thereby shortening the time to adoption. This IBM and NTU cloud platform demonstrates local capabilities that reinforce Singapore’s position as a vibrant, global R&D hub engaged with innovative technologies and applied research relevant to industry adoption.”
“NTU is recognising the strengths of cloud computing technologies from IBM that will provide them with the required flexibility, scalability and accessibility to their HPC environment and will help optimise the utilisation of HPC resources” said Willy Chiu, Vice President, IBM Cloud Labs. “They are also looking to IBM to help them transform to a more complete service-based operation with usage and account management, and provide a single management layer and point of access to multiple virtual private clusters for different schools and HPC user groups in the school.”
While researchers and students at NTU are the immediate beneficiaries, the collaboration is intended to also create solutions that will be ready for commercial adoption by engaging industries and commercial users.
As a charter member of the IBM Cloud Academy, NTU will also be able to share best practices in the use of clouds with other education institutions in the academy, and to collaborate with partners to create innovative cloud technologies and models.
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About IBM Cloud Computing
IBM has helped thousands of clients adopt cloud models and manages millions of cloud based transactions every day. IBM assists clients in areas as diverse as banking, communications, healthcare and government to build their own clouds or securely tap into IBM cloud-based business and infrastructure services. IBM is unique in bringing together key cloud technologies, deep process knowledge, a broad portfolio of cloud solutions, and a network of global delivery centers. For more information about IBM cloud solutions, visit www.ibm.com/smartcloud
For more about IBM, visit www.ibm.com
For more about IBM Cloud Academy, visit www.ibm.com/solutions/education/cloudacademy
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