NeSI’s National Platforms Framework - Consolidation & Refresh
NeSI exists to grow the computing capability of New Zealand researchers. One of the key ways we do this is providing state-of-the-art and fit-for-purpose computing infrastructure. We maintain a National Platforms Framework which outlines the nature of NeSI’s investments into platform infrastructure. The framework is reviewed annually ensuring that we are making strategically-driven investments which will benefit the New Zealand research community as it grows and its needs diversify.
During the last 6 months NeSI has consulted with our key research end user communities and many of the institutions they sit within, to explore their future eScience needs. We are now presenting the 2015 revision of the Framework to the sector, and are interested in discussing our directions. We see these platforms offering significant benefits in terms of fitting a broader set of researchers’ requirements – they will operate on familiar operating environments such as Linux, and support convergence of HPC and big data analytics tools and environments. Both of these changes mean our new platforms will support a broader scope of research workloads, and therefore a broader range of researchers.
Some of the key points to take from this National Platforms Framework are:
- Consolidation of our platforms down to one capacity and one capability machine
- New platforms coming online mid-2017
- Focus on user environments which make it easier to start and are fit-for-purpose
As we work towards these outcomes we are continuing to work closely with national research communities to foster alignment and build partnerships.
