Sustainability & AI
Saving the Planet, One Algorithm at a Time! You all know I love high-performance computing, but recently I’ve been thinking
Cloud Procurement
Navigating cloud adoption requires not only technical insight but also strategic procurement expertise. Our teams technical expertise supports organisations through the end-to-end cloud procurement process, ensuring alignment with business goals, budget, and compliance requirements.
We assist with:
- Cloud Analysis: Evaluate and compare cloud offerings, including hosting, storage and data sovereignty, to determine the best holistic fit for your business needs, application requirements, and user demands.
- Cloud Readiness Assessment: Review your organisation’s setup, policies, and internal expertise to determine how well prepared you are to operate in a cloud environment.
- Business Case Development: Building strong, evidence-based cases to justify cloud investments and secure stakeholder buy-in.
- Requirements Gathering: Working closely with stakeholders to ensure all technical, operational, and business needs are captured and reflected in procurement outputs.
- RFQ & RFP Creation: Preparing clear, comprehensive Request for Quotation (RFQ) and Request for Proposal (RFP) documents tailored to your technical and commercial needs.
- Tender Documentation: Supporting internal procurement departments with the technical expertise required to draft and manage structured tender processes that ensure transparency, competition, and best value outcomes.
- Vendor Engagement & Evaluation: Identifying suitable cloud providers and partners to ensure the right technical delivery through effective two-way communication.
- Contract Negotiation Support: Assisting with service level agreements, pricing models, exit strategies, and compliance considerations to safeguard your interests.
To help you understand whether the cloud is suitable for your workloads, we offer a Cloud Computing Taster.
We worked closely with Red Oak during our first steps in our cloud-HPC journey at Johnson Matthey. Starting from our proof-of concept evaluating the offering of cloud providers to the Pilot phase and roll-out, Red Oak worked with JM to navigate technical challenges and deliver a solution with Microsoft Azure that now enables our scientist to leverage HPC and simulate sustainable materials for the future.”
Johnson Matthey
Red Oak Consulting has been instrumental in getting us up to speed, helping us design and deploy an HPC solution that we can genuinely manage and grow ourselves.””
Manchester Metropolitan University
HPC vs On-Prem vs Cloud
Our HPC experts can complete a series of tasks which will determine the most efficient source to place your HPC workloads: on-premises, Cloud or a hybrid of both.
Cloud Taster
Ready to delve into the power of Cloud? Experience the benefits of Microsoft Azure for your HPC workloads firsthand with our risk-free trial.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
For years, HPC has traditionally been an on-premises affair. Many focus on the upfront costs, neglecting the broader picture. Prioritising the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is essential for informed decision-making.
Dedicated HPC and Cloud specialists delivering cost -effective solutions to all our customers providing sustainability for a stronger future.
Our proven track record is based on assisting numerous organisations across all business sectors to navigate the intricacies of Cloud Computing and its potential added value.
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High-Performance Computing Projects Delivered
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HPC projects delivered on time
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HPC procurements ranging from £100K to £500 million
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Proven track record of customer satisfaction
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HPC in the Cloud Projects
FAQs
Cloud providers provide policy templating and backup solutions with this requirement in mind. Policy templating can, for example, ensure that only business approved VM SKUs can be deployed or only specific VM images can be deployed (this may be to ensure a specific operating system). Non-compliance can be queried regularly. Backup solutions offer snapshotting and backup scheduling features.
Native and various third party monitoring solutions are available on the Cloud. Native solutions often allow data to be fed into third party solutions to fulfil your business requirements. They also allow the setup of custom logging features to, for example, monitor disk space usage on a specific disk on your HPC cluster. With some forethoughts, the monitoring of Spot VM evictions is also possible to give due notice to HPC cluster users.
Similarly, native cost management features can give detailed, resource by resource cost breakdowns over periods of time with the ability to limit costs by setting budgets and budget warnings.
If a full migration to the Cloud is not required, use cases such as expanding your storage space or implementing a HPC queue which allows bursting on to the Cloud is certainly possible. This is particularly useful for getting rapid access to extra capacity or the latest technologies. In addition, on-premises service providers may offer discounts on Cloud services.
Many third parties already offer Cloud enabled solutions and it’s worth inquiring about this. Furthermore, some providers have partnered with Cloud providers to enable a SaaS or PaaS equivalent.
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