A new alliance could see Microsoft partners get their hands on the computing power of supercomputer manufacturer, Cray, via the software vendor’s Azure platform.
Microsoft and Cray revealed on 23 October that they had struck a new deal that will see the supercomputing powerhouse offer up its dedicated supercomputing systems in Microsoft’s Azure data centres.
Under the arrangement, Microsoft and Cray will jointly engage with customers to enable the computing power to run artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, modelling and simulation workloads at unprecedented scale, all connected to the Azure cloud.
“Using the enterprise-proven power of Microsoft Azure, customers are running their most strategic workloads in our cloud,” Microsoft Azure corporate vice president, Jason Zander, said. “By working with Cray to provide dedicated supercomputers in Azure, we are offering customers uncompromising performance and scalability that enables a host of new previously unimaginable scenarios in the public cloud.
“More importantly, we’re moving customers into a new era by empowering them to use HPC and AI to drive breakthrough advances in science, engineering and health,” he said.
The agreement is intended to help bring the high-performance computing power offered by Cray’s infrastructure to end customers who were previously unable to purchase or maintain an on-premises Cray system.
“Our partnership with Microsoft will introduce Cray supercomputers to a whole new class of customers that need the most advanced computing resources to expand their problem-solving capabilities, but want this new capability available to them in the cloud,” Cray president and CEO, Peter Ungaro, said.
“Dedicated Cray supercomputers in Azure not only give customers all of the breadth of features and services from the leader in enterprise cloud, but also the advantages of running a wide array of workloads on a true supercomputer, the ability to scale applications to unprecedented levels, and the performance and capabilities previously only found in the largest on-premises supercomputing centres.
“The Cray and Microsoft partnership is expanding the accessibility of Cray supercomputers and gives customers the cloud-based supercomputing capabilities they need to increase their competitive advantage,” he said.
