Aleksandar Subic (RMIT)
Internet service provider (ISP) Australia's Academic and Research Network (AARNet) has joined the likes of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Intel in implementing solutions for the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s (RMIT) upcoming cloud supercomputing facility.
The facility is set to use AWS services, which RMIT claims is the first Australian university to do in a supercomputing facility, for elastic, secure and scalable cloud infrastructure for both researchers and students in RMIT’s industry hubs.
These include Industry 4.0, advanced manufacturing, space, fintech, digital health and creative technologies.
The university will also utilise AWS Direct Connect to provide low latency, secure and private connections to AWS for workloads that require faster speeds or lower latency than what the internet typically offers.
AARNet’s contribution to the facility includes high-speed internet and communication services. While the ISP’s CEO Chris Hancock said AARNet has worked with RMIT and other Australian universities on research-related projects for decades, it has not been involved in a project like this before.
“We’ve also been connecting researchers to the cloud for many years, but nothing on this scale,” he said.
“We’re excited to be partnering with RMIT on this project that uses our ultra-fast network to remove the barrier of geography and distance for research across Australia and beyond.”
Meanwhile, Intel’s technology will be used for the processing, optimising, storing and moving of large, complicated data sets.
“Our collaboration with AWS, Intel and AARNET to establish Australia’s first cloud supercomputing facility represents a step change in how universities and industries access HPC [high performance computing] capabilities for advanced data processing and computing,” RMIT deputy vice-chancellor (STEM college) and vice president of digital Innovation Professor Aleksandar Subic said.
“By leveraging AWS Direct Connect, RMIT is set to access tremendous HPC processing power using a unique service model that provides seamless access to all our staff, researchers and students.
“Our industry partners will also have access to the new cloud supercomputing facility through joint projects and programs.
“The facility will be operated by our researchers and students in another example that shows how industry engagement and work integrated learning are in our DNA,” he added.
The university’s STEM-focused School of Computing Technologies, which launched earlier this year, is set to support the development and operation of the cloud supercomputing facility.
In addition to previously working with AARNet before, RMIT has also worked with AWS in the past, with the proposed cloud supercomputer facility coming nearly two years after it introduced AWS computing courses in September 2019.
This saw its Online arm team up with AWS Academy to offer two cloud computing courses and mentoring opportunities from AWS partners.
