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Cloud Taster

  • Cloud Taster

BUILDING A HPC CLUSTER IN THE CLOUD

Get to Know Cloud with Red Oak Consulting

Red Oak Consulting has created a product that will allow customers to get a taste of running HPC workloads in Azure.  Customers will be able to run up to three workloads on an Azure cluster, with the help and support of the UK’s leading HPC Consultancy.  Customers will have their own cluster, be able to run their own benchmarks and achieve their own results.  You will get to experience and see first-hand what Microsoft Azure could do for your business, in a safe and secure environment.

We promise, no salespeople, no exaggerations, no jargon,  just pure – tangible facts with proven outcomes.  Outcomes that will give you real life answers.  You will have those all-important tangible facts allowing you to make an informed decision as to whether cloud is the right solution for your business.

Our offering is based on four tasks all of which will be conducted in partnership with you, by a highly skilled, accredited HPC and Cloud Computing Technical Consultant.

Task One: Prerequisite Checks & Fact Finding

This will be an initial meeting to confirm with the customer that they have the required basics in place to run workloads on an Azure cluster.  It will allow any identified and outstanding pre-deployment requirements to be resolved.  Both the customer and Red Oak Consulting will agree on the workloads and users for the project.  We will ensure we have the right answers for:

  • Acceptance criteria for the project
  • Clear measures for success
  • Confirmation of roles and responsibilities
  • Confirmation of dependencies

Task Two: Cluster Deployment (the build)

Red Oak Consulting will deploy a self-contained CycleCloud HPC environment in Azure.  The cluster will be a Red Oak Consulting deployment using standard scripts and templates.  Please note that for this product the deployment will be stand alone and not integrated with customer infrastructure.  The cluster will run under the customer Azure subscription.

Task Three: Workflows & Benchmarking

Making things happen to get results

You will run the agreed workflows directly on the HPC cluster with the full support and guidance of the nominated Red Oak Consulting Technical Consultant.  Please note we recommend the agreed workflows are run across two weeks to ensure that cohesive and factual data is recorded.

Task 4: Results Review & Project Acceptance

Red Oak Consulting will assist the customer in understanding the final results from the benchmarking and workflow testing.  The allocated consultancy time for this task will be to review and interpret the results. We will guide the customer, so they are able to utilise the outcome in a strategic manner e.g. HPC business case.   We will support you to get the following answers:

  • Are the results comparable or better than similar benchmarks run on the customer’s own clusters?
  • Was the experience straight-forward and speedy?
  • Did you experience flexibility, agility?

The results will contain a cost estimation for each run, according to the instance type.  At the end of this project, you will have the tangible results which will inform your decision to continue or accelerate the exploration of running HPC workloads in Azure.

All of this is possible for £9000 + VAT.  This includes 4.5 days of dedicated consultancy time and effort and the completion of the above four tasks.  We define the completion of the project as the delivery of benchmark test results and the completion of successfully running workflows on the stand-alone Azure cluster.