Enabling research excellence by leveraging AWS computing Infrastructure
Robert Shen1, Carina Kemp2, Patrick Taylor1, Dale Osborne1 1RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia 2Amazon Web Services , Sydney, NSW, Australia
Abstract
RMIT is the first Australian university to go live with a dedicated commercial cloud supercomputing facility – RACE (RMIT AWS Cloud Supercomputing) by partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AARNet. RACE was officially launched in October 2022 and was quickly embraced by the RMIT research cohort. For the last six months, RACE has successfully onboarded more than 200 researchers and HDR students, allowing our researchers to test ideas and solutions up to 100 times faster than existing on-site servers.
The initial operation of RACE has identified three advantages and learned four lessons:
Three Advantages
1.Offer efficient and scalable cloud computing and HPC services to accelerate research excellence and empower RMIT researchers to secure competitive research grants.
2.Provide long-term sustainable cloud-based data storage options to enable RMIT to strengthen and comply with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018).
3.Deliver training, technical consultancies and expert services to lower technical barriers and uplift RMIT researchers’ capabilities. This improves research efficiency and maximises funding opportunities.
Four Lessons
1.RACE success stories validate the needs.
2.Clear identification of benefits effectively demonstrates RACE values.
3.Building a cost-effective model beyond 2023 is vital.
4.Offering an adaptive and responsive platform, allows the RACE to better respond to current and future needs.
This presentation will detail the advantages of adopting the cloud-based computing approach and the lessons we learned on enabling research excellence by leveraging AWS cloud services.
Biography
Robert is an experienced digital research infrastructure leader with over 15 years of experience in NCRIS (National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy), higher education and R&D. He received his PhD in Information Technology from the University of Sydney (2006). Before joining RMIT as the Director of RACE (RMIT AWS Cloud Supercomputing), Robert was eResearch Director at Astronomy Australia Limited.