Overview The Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) was founded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences to promote research excellence. It is one of only a few institutes worldwide that focuses on basic plant research. Part of the Vienna Biocenter and located within the purpose-designed Life Sciences Center Vienna building, the GMI provides a modern, international working environment with some 130 staff from 37 countries.

ChallengeDedicated to advancing our understanding of plants, researchers at the GMI investigate

everything from developmental biology to population genetics. To attract the bright-est talent in the field, the GMI aims to har ness the latest technologies to assist scientists in their research.

Dr. Borries Luberacki, Head of HPC Opera-tions at the GMI, begins: “New approaches like next-generation sequencing enable scientists to dig into plant DNA quickly and more cheaply than traditional meth-ods—resulting in a rapid growth of data.”

In addition, advances in medical and bio-logical imaging technology mean that re-searchers at the GMI need to process more data than ever before.

Dr. Borries Luberacki comments: “Today, many researchers want quick access to HPC resources to analyze large, complex data sets. But with more scientists eager to analyze more data with new, modern computational tools, it was becoming in-creasingly difficult for our small team to prioritize and manage it all.”

SolutionTo give scientists a faster and more flex-ible way to access the computing re-sources they need, the GMI decided to deploy SUSE OpenStack Cloud, an enter-prise-ready private cloud platform. The underlying OpenStack open source soft-ware controls pools of compute, storage

Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant BiologyTo push the boundaries of knowledge, scientists at the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology need access to the latest computational tools and high-performance computing (HPC) resources to analyze huge volumes of data. With SUSE® OpenStack Cloud, the institute can provide scientists with computing resources in a private cloud within minutes. Today, scientists can deploy cutting-edge applications and tools to run analyzes as and when needed to gain new insights.

Success StoryCloud Computing

Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology at a Glance:Founded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences to promote research excellence, the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology is the only international center for basic plant research in Austria.

Industry and Location

Research, Vienna, Austria

Products and Services

SUSE OpenStack Cloud

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Results

+ Supports cutting-edge scientific research in plant biology, helping to foster innovation

+ Gives scientists quicker and easier access to the latest computational tools and high- performance computing resources

+ Enables deployment of virtual machines in a private cloud in just 10 minutes

+ Reduces time spent on provisioning and managing IT services

“Now, when scientists want computing resources to analyze next-generation sequencing and biological imaging data sets with the latest computational tools, they can get started themselves without delay. Not only does this support scientific experimentation and innovation, it also greatly reduces the HPC team’s workload.”

DR. BORRIES LUBERACKI

Head of HPC OperationsGregor Mendel Institute of

Molecular Plant Biology

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and networking resources, all managed through a single dashboard.

Dr. Borries Luberacki notes: “Since our HPC cluster runs SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as the operating system, SUSE OpenStack Cloud was the natural choice to expand our computing capabilities. We wanted an enterprise solution from a ven-dor we could trust and, having partnered with SUSE for many years, we knew that we could rely on them for support.”

Working with the SUSE team, the GMI im-plemented SUSE OpenStack Cloud along-side its HPC cluster. Dr. Borries Luberacki says, “The SUSE team was very helpful throughout the implementation, particu-larly when we ran into hardware complexi-ties. Whenever we have any questions, we can get help from SUSE right away.”

With SUSE OpenStack Cloud, the GMI established a software-defined data cen-ter and can quickly deploy virtual ma-chines (VMs) in a private cloud close to the institute’s HPC cluster. The GMI uses the technology to provide fast, flexible Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offer-ings directly to scientists.

Results The simple installation process of SUSE OpenStack Cloud has helped GMI to iter-ate rapidly and adjust the configuration to facilitate integration with its existing HPC cluster.

Dr. Borries Luberacki remarks: “When sci-entists wanted to try out a new analytics application in the past, it would take us weeks, sometimes months, to set up the software stack on the HPC cluster. Because

it took so long, we’d often find that by the time we’d finished setting up the solution, it was no longer needed.

“With SUSE OpenStack Cloud, we can provide scientists with their own VMs in our private cloud in as little as 10 minutes, enabling them to deploy the scientific workflows themselves, as and when they want. This self-service model means that scientists have greater control, flexibility and agility over how and when they use HPC to support their research.”

Thanks to the platform’s easy-to-navigate graphical interface, scientists can quickly and easily launch VMs to deploy their workloads without involving the HPC team.

Dr. Borries Luberacki comments: “Now, when scientists want computing resources to analyze next-generation sequencing and biological imaging data sets with the latest computational tools, they can get started themselves without delay. Not only does this support scientific experimenta-tion and innovation, it also greatly reduces the HPC team’s workload. With scientists able to deploy scientific workflows them-selves, we only have to provide the basic infrastructure. They can test and evaluate tools independently, and only turn to us when they need additional support.”

He concludes: “We’re already planning to implement SUSE OpenStack Cloud 7 to take advantage of the latest Container-as-a-Service capabilities. Containers make sharing complete applications including all necessary dependencies much easier. Enabling our scientists to take full advan-tage of new computational tools will fur-ther support cutting-edge research.”

“With SUSE OpenStack Cloud, we can provide scientists with their own virtual machines in our

private cloud in as little as 10 minutes, enabling them to deploy the scientific workflows themselves,

as and when they want.”

DR. BORRIES LUBERACKI

Head of HPC OperationsGregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology

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