CLOUD FOR RESEARCH & EDUCATION
CloudSigma is the preferred cloud partner of the Open Clouds for Research
Environments project (OCRE), aiming to accelerate cloud adoption
in the European research community.
Our value offer to the GÉANT community
After being selected by GÉANT as the only cloud partner to provide OCRE vouchers to researchers as part of the preparation activities prior to the OCRE framework agreement, we are now excited to be part of this framework agreement for a second consecutive time.
Based on our experience, the following value propositions of CloudSigma have been highlighted by our customers from the research and education community:
We have features & offerings specifically for the GÉANT community
Our cloud provides functionalities that are optimal for research workloads
We offer the highest level of customer service
➤ Direct peering to GÉANT
➤ eduGAIN federated login
➤ Attractive discounts
➤ Instant provisioning – create a new server in less than 30 seconds
➤ Flexible virtual machine sizing
➤ Low-cost repository for big research data volumes
➤ Free migration to and off the CloudSigma cloud
➤ Free Proof-of-Concept accounts
➤ Free technical support and personal account management
CHALLENGES & SUCCESSES
CloudSigma has a long history of delivering cloud infrastructure services to the research and education community. Our experience has helped us formulate specific use cases and has encouraged us to develop services targeted at various infrastructure challenges faced by the research institutes, universities and earth observation institutions.
Research Departments
| Challenges | Solutions |
|---|---|
| ✕ Unplanned ad-hoc ICT capacity requirements from various research projects and faculties. | ✓ Cost-efficient subscriptions for predictable capacity. |
| ✓ Pay-as-you-go burst applied every 5 minutes allowing for ad-hoc and short-term scalability for on-demand research computing requirements. | |
| ✓ Combinations are also possible. | |
| ✕ Security concerns regarding external infrastructure. | ✓ Hybrid infrastructure options for keeping sensitive workloads in-house and using cloud capacities for less sensitive, short-term projects. |
| ✓ GÉANT connectivity guarantees minimal latency. | |
| ✓ ISO certificates & GDPR compliance. |
Success Stories
INP Greifswald collaborated with CloudSigma for a new project that aims at enabling and permanently supporting data-driven research and knowledge transfer in the field of plasma technology.
CloudSigma could fulfil all requirements in terms of both security and scalability.
One of the first research institutions awarded a CloudSigma voucher through OCRE is Oxford Brookes University’s Department of Biological and Medical Sciences. The university needed a highly scalable and customizable cloud solution for a single-cell sequencing research project.
CloudSigma provided the scalability, flexibility and excellent technical support the research team required to be able to work on their project quickly and efficiently.
➤ To read the full success story, click here.
Uni Labs
| Challenge | Solutions |
|---|---|
| ✕ Professors need a large number of limited cloud accounts, which the students can use for experiments in their IT/cloud computing classes. | ✓ Tailored test period offering via a promo code. |
| ✓ Access control lists allowing professors to share various sets of resources with one or more other accounts. | |
| ✕ The accounts should be limited in capacity to avoid abuse and overbill. | ✓ No overbilling per definition. |
| ✕ School’s traditional on-premises computing equipment are often slow and less flexible. | ✓ All CloudSigma clouds run on latest generation HPE hardware, which guarantees top performance. |
Success Stories
RESTENA and CloudSigma collaborated in order to provide cloud services for a post-secondary education course named “Installation and Configuration of Windows Server”, run by the Lycée des Arts et Métiers in Luxembourg.
➤ To read the full success story, click here.
Sheffield Hallam University and CloudSigma cooperated in an initiative with nearly fifty students taken part in the cloud computing module.
The students were divided into three groups and were given various practical tasks, from VM creation to Apache installation.
➤ To read the full success story, click here.
CloudSigma is trusted by more than 50 universities,
research institutions & public organizations around the world:
Earth Observation
| Challenge | Solutions |
|---|---|
| ✕ Infrastructural challenges of big data workloads such as scalability or performance. | ✓ CloudSigma’s tiered storage offering (SSD, scale-out magnetic and object storage) allows for a maximum price-performance ratio. |
| ✓ CloudSigma uses highest performance cloud stack powered by HPE’s latest generation hardware. | |
| ✕ The Earth Observation market requires an ecosystem where data and compute are bundled together so that end users can list and discover data-driven services as well as various data sets and value-added subproduct. |
✓ CloudSigma is maintaining a repository of satellite data for Europe and North America. The repository is accessible with near-zero latency by all European cloud locations. |
| ✓ Combining CloudSigma’s powerful computing environment with a repository of Sentinel data creates a unique environment on which to place Earth Observation related workloads and services. |
Success Stories
CloudSigma supports with its infrastructure the RSS team (Research and Service Support) of the European Space Agency (ESA).
Thanks to the successful collaboration, ESA RSS was able to improve the quality of its services while continuing to grow and expand its deployment.
➤ To read the full success story, click here.
Every year since 2013, CloudSigma fuels NASA incubator innovation program Space Apps Challenge. The hackathon embraces the collaborative nature of open-source software.
Using CloudSigma’s open-source cloud and access to our Sentinel data repository, participants engage with publicly available data and provide innovative solutions to the hackathon challenges.
CloudSigma has also sponsored some other similar events such as the Copernicus Hackathon Sofia.
➤ To read the full success story, click here.
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