Together with the University of Bergen and the University of Oslo, UNINETTs HE Cloud initiative (UH-sky) is working to demonstrate how scientists can make use of cloud based infrastructure. A large part of the work is based on the architecture developed for the Norwegian HPC company, UNINETT Sigma2.
In the pilot project Researchlab, a standardized layer will be built over cloud infrastructure from different vendors, to enable the researcher to choose from a menu whether his application should run in a public cloud, on a common, national HPC infrastructure, or on-premise.
- – We’re collaborating with the universities of Bergen and Oslo to demonstrate how we can create a common market place, a sort of AppStore, where the universies can act as both consumers and suppliers, says Hildegunn Vada of UNINETT. – In this work we have utilized both container technology and Kubernetes.
The aim of using container technology is to package all you need for an application into a container that can run independently from other programs, operating systems or libraries. The use of containers and Kubernetes makes it easier to use applications across different infrastructures in a seamless manner.
Before the applications can be offered through the self service interface, adjustments must be made. This is something the different institurions in the HE sector can sollaborate on. An adaption for one institution’s researchers can be offered to other institutions, so that the work of one IT department will benefit all.