Research Cyberinfrastructure (RCI) Cloud community meeting

DoIT Research Cyberinfrastructure (RCI) is organizing a cloud community group, a platform that offers you the opportunity to gain and share valuable cloud computing skills. By joining this community, you’ll share your experiences using cloud resources and be part of a collective effort to understand the growing importance of cloud computing and to identify the latest cloud technologies. This community has already facilitated the creation of a panel  on ‘Harnessing the Cloud for Data Science’ at the Research Bazaar, and has seen two of its members present at the 8th Annual UW–‍Madison IT Professionals Conference, sharing insights on building a cloud community at UW–‍Madison.

The fast evolution of cloud platforms, such as the recent emergence of Large Language Models and Generative Artificial Intelligence, underscores the importance of being part of a community to keep pace with these changes. As an individual, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the expanding cloud services offered by the vendors (Amazon Web Services, Azure and Google Cloud Platform) without the support and knowledge sharing that a community provides.

Similar to last year, RCI purchased and distributed a few licenses for A Cloud Guru (a cloud training platform) that are good from June 2024 to April 2025 to researchers to build their cloud-native skills and pave the way for harnessing the potential of the cloud for their research innovations. These licenses were available to researchers on a first-come, first-served basis.

RCI is also exploring using cloudbank and NIH cloudlab accounts to help our  community’s efforts building their cloud skills.