Scaling Research Computing Environment: A Journey to the Cloud!

With increasing data-intensive projects comes the high demand for high-performance computing infrastructure. Institutions are now re-evaluating their research computing strategies and looking at replacing their traditional research computing environments with cloud computing solutions that provide agility and scalable infrastructure. However, the migration of research computing to the cloud requires careful planning and execution to ensure cost-effectiveness, security, and reliability. In this presentation, we will share the journey of Bentley University’s quest for replacing its local research computing infrastructure with a cloud environment. We will share how we started with the basics to understand faculty needs for research computing and using personas to design a scalable architecture, optimize performance and cost, and ensure data security and compliance. We will share our lessons learned and share a couple of case studies of successful research projects that have leveraged cloud computing to achieve breakthrough results.