Description of the RI

ELKH Cloud, the cloud-based computing system operated by the Eötvös Loránd Research Network (ELKH – Eötvös Loránt Kutatási Hálózat) is one of the largest general-purpose research infrastructures in Hungary. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences initiated the development of the cloud in 2016 and ELKH further developed the infrastructure in 2021. Members of the scientific community in Hungary not only use but develop and operate the cloud services as well. Supported by ELKH, the Institute for Computer Science and Control (SZTAKI – Számítástechnikai és Automatizálási Kutatóintézet) and the Data Centre of the Wigner Research Centre for Physics provide computing and data services to ELKH Cloud users involved in more than 150 research projects.

The success of new scientific research is increasingly dependent on the efficient storage and processing of ample amounts of data originating from research. The ELKH Cloud facilitates research work by providing a turnkey high-capacity hardware infrastructure and special software environment necessary for data-driven research. Custom-tailored professional support is also available on demand.

ELKH Cloud provides access to an innovative IT platform to research teams that cannot afford the costs and efforts associated with the procurement, installation and operation of their own systems. Leveraging the applied scalability and virtualization technologies, the cloud can serve various and constantly changing user demands, resulting in significant economic savings.

Activities and Services

Research often requires complex, large-scale platforms based on the coordinated operation of multiple components. ELKH Cloud therefore provides customisable, reliable and scalable templates, among others with the help of so-called cloud orchestration methods.

In addition to operating systems and basic IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) level cloud functionalities, the most popular artificial intelligence research and data ingestion frameworks are also available at PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) level, thanks to the open architecture based on OpenStack.

Based on positive feedback received in recent years, as well as the growing demand for artificial intelligence applications, the cloud capacity was significantly expanded in 2021 with support from ELKH. As a result, 5900 vCPU, 2060 vGPU, 28 TB RAM, 338 TB SSD storage, 1.25 PB HDD storage and 100 Gbps network capacities have become available to users.

The enhanced ELKH Cloud provides a competitive research infrastructure on a European level that also welcomes projects initiated by universities and national laboratories.

ELKH aims to make the enhanced ELKH Cloud an integral part of the European Open Science Cloud and SLICES ESFRI initiatives. This will allow free flow of applications and data of Hungarian researchers in the Horizon Europe programme through the European infrastructure, providing opportunities for establishing high profile international collaborations in an ever-widening field.