RNP presents cloud collaboration strategies at Cloudscape Brazil 2014

RNP was one of the invited organizations to partake at Cloudscape Brazil 2014, the first international conference about collaboration through cloud computing, conducted this Monday, 10/20, at RDC’s auditorium at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). The event was promoted by the EU-Brazil Cloud Connect, project, financed through the Brazil – Europe Union Cooperative Program, in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (TIC).

Representatives from many international institutions showed scenarios and possibilities about how cloud computing may contribute for scientific research. Federalization of services on cloud, scientific applications that demand high storage capacity, the involvement of the private sector and the questions connected to the privacy of data were some of the addressed themes.

José Luiz Ribeiro Filho, RNP’s Director of Services and Solutions was the invited panelist to deliver a special keynote, and he presented the organization’s strategy to deploy the Brazilian academic cloud. Through an institutional proposal, the "position paper: A Strategy for the Implementation of the Brazilian Academic Cloud", he stressed the Shared Data Center (CDC) program, performed by RNP to meet the growing demand for computational resources based on the current cloud computing Technologies. The goal is to promote the collaboration between teaching and research institutions in Brazil, through storage, processing and software distribution services, offered through containers solutions of datacenter, hardware and software, deployed in two Brazilian capitals: Manaus, in the North, and Recife, in the Northeast. 

The cloud institutional proposal was elected by the participants as the event’s best “position paper”, and had great impact among the members of the European cloud communities, who were very interested to know the strategy and the in detail, as well as the cloud operated and coordinated by RNP.  Currently, the reach of the Brazilian academic network contemplates over 900 connected institutions and Points of Presence in 27 units of the federation. There are approximately 3,5 million users enjoying an advanced network infrastructure for communication, computing and experimentation, which contributes for the integration between the Science and Technology, Higher Education, Health and Culture system.

José Luiz Ribeiro Filho also partook in the "Connecting Research at Speed of Light" panel, next to RNP’s Research and Development, Michael Stanton, and Donatella Castelli, researcher at Italy’s National Institute of the Research Council. The focus of discussion were the opportunities to support research and education in Brazil and in Europe, through the use of computing clouds, that is, the network infrastructure to support cloud computing.