Mr Kaushik Ramesh1, Mr Bryce Torcello1
1Australian Research Data Commons, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Kaushik Ramesh is a Senior Cloud DevOps Engineer with a strong background in cloud infrastructure, automation, and agile delivery. With deep expertise in managing OpenStack environments, Kaushik leads initiatives to streamline cloud operations and improve service reliability. They play a key role in project planning, sprint coordination, and workflow automation, serving as both a technical leader and Scrum Master.
Bryce Torcello is a DevOps engineer at ARDC, bringing valuable experience from his previous role managing high-performance computing infrastructure at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. He works on the Nectar cloud, Australia's federated OpenStack research cloud platform serving thousands of researchers nationwide. His hands-on experience in both HPC environments and cloud infrastructure management provides unique insights into the practical challenges and opportunities facing research computing today. Having worked on both sides of the infrastructure divide, Torcello offers a pragmatic perspective on evolving research computing needs and the operational realities of running large-scale scientific infrastructure.
Abstract:
Established in 2012, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) Nectar Research Cloud has become a cornerstone of Australia's digital research infrastructure. As an open-source, distributed and federated cloud platform spanning multiple institutions, Nectar has supported nearly 6,700 research projects and attracted over 29,000 users. It continues to empower researchers across traditional and emerging domains such as climate science, genomics and artificial intelligence.
The Nectar National Node is managed and operated by ARDC in partnership with AARNet, which hosts the infrastructure. Already operational and supporting researchers across Australia, the Node provides a range of cloud-based services including Virtual Machines, Volume Storage, interactive platforms such as JupyterHub and BinderHub, Virtual Desktops and Kubernetes-based Container Orchestration, all delivered within an enterprise-grade architecture built for performance, reliability and security. With a strong focus on service quality and resilience, and drawing on AARNet’s cybersecurity expertise, the Node is actively pursuing ISO27001 certification to align with international standards for information security and service management. This supports national research platforms, sensitive data workflows and trusted research environments in fields such as health and medical research.
This presentation will demonstrate how the National Node enhances Nectar’s distributed model and offers a scalable, secure foundation for research cloud infrastructure. Attendees will gain insights into how the Node helps accelerate time to results and supports the growth of data-intensive projects such as large-scale genomic analysis and multi-institution research collaboration.
As Australia's research landscape becomes more complex and data-driven, the National Node ensures equitable access to world-class resources for researchers nationwide.