OCF partners with RONIN to support uptake of public cloud in research computing

Both members of the AWS Partner Network (APN), OCF and RONIN will together be able to help research computing take advantage of the benefits of public cloud. Using RONIN, researchers can spin-up environments as needed for short term requirements or assess the usefulness of advancements in co-processors or software frameworks without the onus of large capital expenditure or long lead times.  It also supports those organisations taking their first steps in AI and machine learning, giving them easy access to the latest GPU technology.

The public cloud is already being used to augment on-premises resources in many institutions, what RONIN brings is a way of managing the public cloud as a central resource, giving researchers the freedom to spin-up resources in a simple repeatable manner, compliant with an institution’s policies. 

Byron Low, VP of Global Operations at RONIN comments: “Not only do our researchers and scientists have the responsibility of expanding humanity’s understanding of the physical and natural world, but they are also often thrust into roles such as system administrator, network engineer and storage manager in order to enter the world of cloud computing and e-research. RONIN’s simple and easy to use application takes away any of the challenges faced with managing and controlling the use of HPC cloud services within a research setting or organisation.”

Andrew Dean, Sales Director at OCF says: “With RONIN, the public cloud becomes another resource that a central research computing department can share with its user community – giving users the self-service capabilities they desire, along with the oversight and control required by the organisation. It’s a win-win, and I believe a big step forward for institutions to be able to seriously start taking advantage of the public cloud for research at an institutional level.

I’m very excited to start talking to new and existing customers about how AWS, managed by RONIN, can become part of their research computing offering for their users.”

RONIN’s web-based application helps cloud HPC users to consume AWS cloud services in a controlled environment. It enables the creation of an auto-scaling cluster that will shut down idle resources on completion of workloads and assist with key management, networking and storage requirements.  RONIN’s budget manager provides a detailed breakdown of cost for individual machines or across an   entire organisation. The RONIN Smart Scheduler allows researchers to easily automate when their virtual machines will turn on and off with a few simple clicks. To make accessing the virtual machines easier for the users, there’s a desktop app called RONIN Link which is available for Windows, Ubuntu and Mac.