04.105.2015 - What Impact Can Virtualization Have on the Field of Research Computing?

Challenges for IT supporting research computing environments What is most important to an IT department supporting university research? Based on conversations with many of our customers, we have repeatedly heard the following: Satisfying the varied and sometimes conflicting requirements of different research groups, which may include compliance issues for bioinformatics research Showing the value of centralized IT resources against buying isolated equipment or outsourcing to a public provider of infrastructure Meeting these goals while on a limited budget For many independent research teams, each desired environment typically involves its own set of simulation and analytics tools, including different operating systems and other middleware components. For example, different environments and tools are used for genomic research than for reservoir simulation. Satisfying these disparate requirements is often not possible in a traditional, un-virtualized HPC environment due to the uniform software environment imposed across these facilities. Software tools that are in conflict may require dedicated compute nodes or may not be supportable at all in traditional, centralized HPC clusters. Storage requirements may also be in conflict. For example, funding may come with strict data segregation and security requirements that cannot be easily satisfied without buying isolated equipment for every project. Using multiple, dedicated [...]]>... - View Press Release - Visit VMware, Inc.