Introduction It’s mid-2013 and I have just graduated with a physics degree. I really enjoyed the theoretical component, but the computational and experimental labs were rather uninspiring. I still wanted to do something more practical, with foreseeable benefits, but I was also afraid of specialising myself into oblivion. A few months of speculative emails and … Read more
Tech Skills in Action at Sheffield Hallam Yesterday, my colleague James Page and I supported the final stage of a Smart Computing hackathon at Sheffield Hallam University. Representing Red Oak Consulting, I started the day with a talk on “Scaling Up from Pi to Planet” before students continued to work on and develop their projects. … Read more
Azure Batch, or Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Choosing the right platform for computational workloads is a business decision that impacts scalability, cost, and operational efficiency. Azure offers three powerful options for different use cases: Azure CycleCloud, Azure Batch, and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Each tool has distinct strengths and suitability for specific types of workloads. This … Read more
Having assisted with the management of a number of cloud HPC systems over the last few years, I have noticed several cost components that are often overlooked. On the other hand, customers may have some difficulty keeping control of the more obvious costs. In this article, with a focus on cloud HPC deployments, I hope … Read more
Introduction Cloud HPC can help speed up the procurement process and provide flexibility that on-premises HPC cannot offer. However, this does not mean that taking time to design, iterate, and engage with key members of your organisation can be skirted around. One key area that can often be overlooked is monitoring. Monitoring can provide a … Read more
Streamlining Your Cloud HPC Journey Over the last few years, I have had the privilege of being involved in several Cloud High-Performance Computer (HPC) cluster deployments. Despite the great variation in designs, which highlights the great flexibility on the Cloud, I have noticed some common roadblocks along the way. These roadblocks can in the best … Read more
Deployment and Management from the front line Infrastructure-as-Code is an inherent advantage of using the cloud. Simply put, this is the ability to describe new infrastructure required for your cloud deployment in your chosen tool eg Bicep, Terraform, Pulumi, or one of the many others, which can then be read and deployed into your environment. … Read more
Various security tools and features have been made available to Cloud end users over the past few years. They are designed to allow the application of security best practices on a Cloud infrastructure, similar to how it is with an on-premise data centre. Yet many skeptics’ have questions around security in the Cloud, for example: … Read more
When we’re approached by a customer to perform or support a Cloud Proof of Concept (PoC), regardless of its conceptual state, we have a number of key steps and initial questions in mind. The most obvious is to state the exact problem which needs to be solved. Since any proof of concept is almost always … Read more
Much of the current HPC community is behaving, excuse the gross stereotyping, a little like a dinosaur, wondering what that large red fireball in the sky is. Why? Look at the steady growth of public cloud adoption. Now consider the inevitable improvement in technical capabilities and the volume pricing that large cloud vendors can offer, … Read more
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