Overview

The Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF) is a non-profit organisation pivotal in advancing digital research infrastructure across Queensland and Australia. Fuelled by investments from its members, the Queensland Government, and the Australian Government’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), QCIF is a key player in research and innovation.

QCIF is driven by a vision to be the preferred digital research partner of choice for members, collaborators and clients. Their mission encompasses provisioning state-of the-art digital research infrastructure, upskilling researchers, and catalysing collaboration across the region to accelerate research excellence and societal impact.

The initial phase of QCIF's project with IBM and Gold Partner, OneTeam IT, included the integration of 44 high performance Lenovo servers, IBM storage solutions, and Nvidia high-speed network switches. This robust combination was chosen for its unique features, compatibility with existing systems, performance, and overall cost-effectiveness.

The choice of IBM and Lenovo solutions, facilitated by OneTeam IT, was a result of a competitive tender process. Despite the risk associated with introducing a new vendor, Lenovo, OneTeam IT's reputation and the tender response reassured QCIF of the potential success in upgrading their digital research infrastructure – a decision that has since proven successful.

QCIF previously relied on an aging iteration of the Nectar Cloud platform, which was increasingly unable to meet the growing demands and complex needs of the research community. The requirement for enhanced performance and capability to handle new workloads became critical.

Post-implementation, researchers accessing the Nectar environment experienced enhanced capabilities in running new and complex workloads, including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, leading to improved research outcomes and efficiency.

The success of this project has not only augmented QCIF's digital research capabilities but also significantly contributed to impactful research in areas like Covid, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and climate change - illustrating the transformative impact of cutting-edge digital infrastructure in accelerating research and innovation.

Partnering with IBM and OneTeam IT has been a transformative experience for QCIF. Their expertise in implementing high performing technology solutions has significantly enhanced our research capabilities, enabling us to tackle more complex and demanding projects. The seamless integration and performance improvements have been crucial in advancing our digital research infrastructure, further solidifying our position as a leader in innovative research across Australia.

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Key Outcomes

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Advanced Research Capabilities: Facilitating groundbreaking research in critical areas such as Alzheimer's, heart disease, and climate change.

Powering Complex Workloads: Enabling researchers to efficiently run sophisticated workloads, particularly in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, leading to improved research outcomes and efficiency.

Transformative yet Cost Effective: Providing QCIF with a costeffective upgrade, aligning with their digital research needs and existing systems.