October 27, 2011  – The Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) announced today the launch of Red Cloud, an on-demand research computing service available by subscription.

Two Red Cloud services are available. The basic offering, called “Red Cloud,” is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) that runs Eucalyptus, the open source cloud computing platform. Subscribers have root access to virtual servers and virtual disks.

The second offering, “Red Cloud with MATLAB,” is a Software as a Service (SaaS) that runs MATLAB Distributed Computing Server and features NVIDIA GPUs. Subscribers program applications on their desktops using their licensed copy of Parallel Computing Toolbox™ and then scale up to Red Cloud with MATLAB using MATLAB Distributed Computing Server.

Deployed by CAC as a flexible computing and data analysis resource for Cornell University researchers and their collaborators, Red Cloud services are now available to researchers at other academic institutions.

Red Cloud subscriptions provide fast access to data via 10Gb Ethernet in and out of the cloud at no additional charge. Subscriptions also include 50GB of storage. These features appeal to researchers who work with data-driven applications.

 “Cloud computing has the potential to advance U.S. research discoveries and better prepare students for STEM careers by making computing, software, and data resources more readily available at an economy of scale,” concluded CAC director David A. Lifka.

 To learn more about Red Cloud, visit www.cac.cornell.edu/redcloud.