The success of small businesses in the U.K. is driven by research and development (R&D). According to the U.K. government*, one-third of productivity growth between 2000 and 2008 was due to technological changes driven by science and innovation. It also found that businesses which consistently invest in R&D are 13 per cent more productive than firms that don’t, and small and medium businesses (SMBs) that innovate have much lower failure rates and perform better in export markets.

High-performance computing (HPC) is crucial to this growing knowledge economy. It allows scientists to model genomes, car designers to predict how air will flow around a component, and meteorologists to understand weather patterns. But HPC infrastructures require significant investment and exist mainly within universities or specialist HPC centres. SMBs in particular have traditionally

found it difficult to access HPC facilities due to the high cost of resources and lack of specialist skills.

The world-renowned University of Cambridge has one of the largest research budgets in the U.K., at £500 million a year. It has been working with Dell since 2010, when the two organisations set up a European HPC Solution Centre at the university. Dr Paul Calleja, Deputy Director, Research & Institutional Services at the University of Cambridge, says: ‘We now have the largest academic cluster and the fastest university HPC system in the U.K.” The centre comprises around 800 Dell PowerEdge servers containing more than 10,000 processing cores for 183 CPU tera-FLOPS and 239 GPU TFlops of compute power. A 4-petabyte custom Lustre file system is used for storage and is based on Dell PowerVault arrays. The centre works with some of the world’s leading scientific research institutes,

Business needTo help speed time to market

and raise their international

competitiveness, businesses in the

U.K. need access to infrastructure

for simulation science and big data

processing, but this can be costly.

SolutionThe University of Cambridge works

with Dell to make the resources in

its HPC Solution Centre available via

the cloud to U.K. small and medium

businesses (SMBs).

Benefits• SMBs in the U.K. can compete

in global knowledge economy

with easier access to resources

for research

• Cloud-enabled HPC opens up

big data analysis to previously

unexplored data

• World-leading research university

shares HPC expertise

• Continued partnership with Dell

helps drive innovation in the U.K.’s

fastest supercomputer

Solutions at a glance• Big Data• High Performance Computing• Cloud Solutions

Powering the U.K.’s knowledge economyCambridge University and Dell give U.K. SMBs access to critical R&D resources by lowering the barrier of entry to high- performance computing

Customer profile

Company University of

Cambridge

Industry Higher Education

Country United Kingdom

Employees 10,000+

Website www.cam.ac.uk

“Dell is a good match because we’re both moving in the same direction. For us, the future means the application of cloud technologies, focusing on data analytics and big data.” Dr. Paul Calleja, Deputy Director, Research & Institutional Services, University of Cambridge

*Innovation and the U.K.’s knowledge economy, published speech, 22 July 2014

2

Dell, the Dell logo, PowerEdge and PowerVault are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Availability and terms of Dell Software, Solutions and Services vary by region. This case study is for informational purposes only. Dell makes no warranties — express or implied — in this case study. Reference Number: 10022559 © October 2015, Dell Inc. All Rights Reserved

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including the European Space Agency and the Eastern Sequence and Informatics Hub. Dr Calleja says: “We’re supporting some of the world’s most important scientific, medical and technical research projects with Dell, opening the door to new discoveries.”

Helping small businesses in the U.K.The Cambridge HPC Solution Centre has a mandate to make HPC available to organisations working within the U.K. knowledge economy, in industries spanning from new media to engineering. One such company is HPC software firm Zenotech. Co-Founder and Director Jamil Appa says: “Working with the University of Cambridge gives us the ability to perform R&D at a scale where we can develop products that are unique for our customers. As an example, Zenotech can use the 256 GPUs on one of the clusters at the HPC Solution Centre to give us the equivalent performance of a 6,000 CPU cluster. This is typically beyond the reach of most engineering firms and certainly small firms like Zenotech. It’s enabled us to prove the technology, which has subsequently created great interest among our customers.”

Big data processing via the cloudAppa says that much of the big data generated by engineering applications is discarded without being processed, because it’s either too expensive to store or too difficult to analyse. He sees initiatives like the Cambridge HPC Solution Centre as extremely positive because small firms can pay to access

just the resources they need when they need them. “Commercial HPC models need to become more cloud friendly,” he says. “I’d like to see HPC services available on demand so SMBs can pay for the resources they need to exploit big data and find the value within.”

The U.K.’s knowledge economy is ready for the futureFor the university, being future-ready is about harnessing the cloud to access compute and data services, as well as develop data analytics techniques and methodologies. And, together with Dell, it’s committed to broadening the reach of the Solution Centre. Dr Calleja says: “Dell is a good match because we’re both moving in the same direction. For us, the future means the application of cloud technologies, focusing on data analytics and big data.” In addition to finding common ground on computing matters, the two organisations share the same outlook when it comes to helping businesses grow. “The Cambridge HPC Solution Centre has two aims: driving innovation within our research community and increasing entrepreneurship within the Cambridge tech cluster,” says Calleja. “We see this as a parallel to Dell’s mission of driving innovation and entrepreneurship within its own customer base.”

Products & Services

Hardware

Dell PowerEdge servers

Dell PowerVault storage