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
The Accessible World of HPC Supercomputers sure do grab headlines and solve some of the world’s largest problems, but being on the TOP500 is not all that High-Performance Computing (HPC) is about. The truth is, HPC isn’t reserved for national laboratories or tech giants. It’s a practical efficiency solution that’s transforming how organisations of all … Read more
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
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