QCloud

QCIF and its participants are establishing a Queensland NeCTAR Research Cloud Node (QCloud) with its main data centre located at UQ’s St Lucia campus.

The NeCTAR component of QCloud will become a national centre for new information-centric research capabilities. It will significantly simplify the combining of data, computing, and analysis applications, and enable the development of research workflows based on access to multiple resources. The research cloud will provide an open, robust and scalable platform for researchers to deploy, share and manage their research applications.  Building from current data-intensive computing for genomics, and for the ecology research and characterisation communities, QCloud will support NeCTAR Virtual Laboratories and Research Tools in these areas.  It will extend the application of its expertise to other fields to develop and support cross-institution and cross-disciplinary collaboration, providing access to applications and facilities for data-intensive “connected researchers” in a broad range of disciplines.

QCloud also incorporates the Queensland RDSI node, and as such will be an integral part of nationwide research infrastructure, leveraging data collections stored in the local and national RDSI nodes, and integrating with access to Queensland-based HPC facilities and specialised cloud data services.  It will support federation with commercial, and national and international research compute clouds. QCIF will manage the node to ensure it is sustainable well beyond the life of the initial NeCTAR project.