High Performance Shared Research Cloud on JANET(R) to Cut Computing Costs of University Research Into Fractions

SLOUGH, England, July 11, 2011 -

UK University Research
Community and UK Economy to Benefit from Sharing
Logicalis HPC Cloud Environment

International solutions provider, href="www.uk.logicalis.com/">Logicalis UK, today
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.”

The Shared Research Cloud is available immediately.

For further information please contact:

Logicalis UK
Andrew Parker/Jennifer Manning
Cohesive Communications
T: +44(0)1291-626200
E: href="mailto:Logicalis@cohesive.uk.com">Logicalis@cohesive.uk.com

JANET(UK)
Aileen Caskie
Head of Marketing
T: +44(0)1235-822257
E: href="mailto:aileen.caskie@ja.net">aileen.caskie@ja.net

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