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The Compute Canada | The Compute Canada cloud resource or "CC-Cloud" is a pool of hardware supporting [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_virtualization virtualization]. This can be thought of as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing#Infrastructure_as_a_service_.28IaaS.29 Infrastructure as a Service]. | ||
A user of the | A user of the cloud will typically create or "spin up" one or more virtual machines (VMs or "instances"). He or she then logs into the VM with administrative privileges, installs any desired software, and runs the software applications needed. These applications could be as diverse as a CPU-intensive analysis of particle physics data, or a web service directed towards scholars of literature and the humanities. The advantage is that the user has complete control over the collection of installed software (the "software stack"). The disadvantage is that the user must have some degree of experience in installing software and otherwise managing a computer. | ||
Virtual machines can be easily replicated. One can take a "snapshot" of a VM which can then be started again elsewhere. This makes it easy to replicate or scale up a service, and to recover from (for example) a power interruption. | Virtual machines can be easily replicated. One can take a "snapshot" of a VM which can then be started again elsewhere. This makes it easy to replicate or scale up a service, and to recover from (for example) a power interruption. | ||
If you can fit your work easily into the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer HPC] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_processing batch] submission workflow and environment (see [[What is a scheduler?]]) it is preferable to work outside the cloud, as there are more [[National systems|resources available]] for HPC and software is already configured and installed for many common needs. There are also tools like [[Singularity]] to run custom software stacks inside containers within Compute Canada HPC clusters. | If you can fit your work easily into the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer HPC] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batch_processing batch] submission workflow and environment (see [[What is a scheduler?]]) it is preferable to work outside the cloud, as there are more [[National systems|resources available]] for HPC and software is already configured and installed for many common needs. There are also tools like [[Singularity]] to run custom software stacks inside containers within Compute Canada HPC clusters. | ||
If your need isn't served by Singularity or HPC batch, then | If your need isn't served by Singularity or HPC batch, then the cloud is your solution. | ||
=Getting a Cloud project= | =Getting a Cloud project= | ||