Cloud Computing

XSEDE and Aristotle Cloud Federation Offer Joint Cloud Implementation Service

• By Rhea Kelly
• 03/21/19

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is partnering with the Aristotle Cloud Federation to help institutions deploy the OpenStack cloud on their campuses. The two National Science Foundation-funded projects have a shared goal of advancing research computing resources in higher education.

The joint service begins with a phone consultation, after which XSEDE staff will "assist campus systems administrators or researchers onsite with the configuration of their OpenStack cloud and ensure that they have the knowledge they need to maintain it," according to a news announcement. The service is provided for free as part of the XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure Resource Integration group's mission to "help campus cyberinfrastructure staff manage their local computing and storage resources." Process documentation was developed by staff consultants from the Aristotle Cloud Federation.

"Combining the consulting strengths of the XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure Resource Integration group with Aristotle Cloud Federation project expertise in OpenStack cloud implementation is a win-win for U.S. campus cyberinfrastructure administrators interested in adding clouds to their campus research resources," commented John Towns, principal investigator and project director for XSEDE, in a statement.

"Clouds have a complementary role to play in campus cyberinfrastructure," said David Lifka, principal investigator for the Aristotle project and vice president for information technologies and CIO at Cornell University. "The key is rightsizing the on-premise cloud so that utilization is 85 percent or higher; that makes it cost-effective, and campus users can then leverage public or NSF clouds when they need more resources or a platform-as-a-service such as machine learning."

The cloud implementation services will be available in September. For more information, visit the XSEDE site.