Beth Kent 
Schooling and Spitfires My career started with an electrical engineering apprenticeship. Although I did not realise it at the time, this gave me invaluable skills and knowledge that I would use my entire career. The company that I served my apprenticeship with was an aluminium company in Banbury by the name of Alcan. It is … Read more
Roco’s Guide to the Unexpected Power of Supercomputing Hello Again, Humans! Guess what? I’ve just had my circuits well and truly blown. Again. I mean, I always thought HPC (that’s High-Performance Computing, for those of you still confusing it with “Hot Potato Club”) was just for the big, brainy science stuff – nuclear fusion, weather … Read more
Buying High-Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure is not like picking out a new laptop. It is a strategic decision, one that can shape an organisation’s ability to innovate, compete, and grow. But with that strategic weight comes complexity, and with complexity often comes hesitation. Long, drawn-out decision cycles are common. That is where a great supplier, with … Read more
After a successful proof-of-concept (PoC) phase, the natural next key milestone is a pilot deployment. But have you ever wondered why many pilot projects stall before becoming operational? In this post, we’ll walk through the essential stages, questions, and best practices for running a production-grade Cloud HPC Pilot following a successful PoC. A pilot bridges … Read more
Why These Teams Must Stop Working in Silos When I speak to people in sustainability roles, I often hear about the battles they face with finance teams. The conversations rarely go well, and in many companies, the inability to get finance on board becomes a major roadblock to securing top-level buy-in. I lead something of … Read more
Introduction Last year, I was faced with a user issue that initially confused me. A user running open-source CFD software told me they had installed the same software on their laptop, and it was running much faster on their 8-core workstation compared to a 120-core HPC-optimised machine on a cloud HPC cluster. Could we have … Read more
Innovation, Efficiency, and a Few Thousand Steps In our pre-ISC blog, we looked ahead with excitement at what ISC 2025 might bring. Now, with the event behind us (and our feet finally recovering), it’s time to reflect on what turned out to be a packed, insightful, and energising few days in Hamburg. Vendor Showdown … Read more
My Journey to ISC 2025 As a Senior HPC Managed Services Specialist at Red Oak Consulting, I ensure that large-scale computing environments operate seamlessly and efficiently for our customers. My work revolves around operations, optimisation, and continuity in high-performance computing. This year, I’m thrilled to attend ISC 2025 in Hamburg — my first foray into … Read more
Introduction A common topic during many of our projects is the sizing of a HPC cluster. More specifically, we often come across clusters which we can loosely characterise as having a low average utilisation. This may be an intentional design point or an artifact of over procurement or oversizing. Reasons why an oversized cluster may … Read more
Saving the Planet, One Algorithm at a Time! You all know I love high-performance computing, but recently I’ve been thinking a lot about something even more important: our planet! As I walk around the office observing our brilliant consultants at work, I’ve been pondering how AI can be a superhero in the fight for sustainability. … Read more
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