Intersect Australia, Australia’s largest research IT support agency, has built a name for itself providing services for New South Wales’ extensive, world-leading university sector. However, in order to get to the next stage, Intersect needed an infrastructure platform that could enable researchers to undertake a variety of analyses. The platform needed to support processing and storage of vast amounts of data, as well as enable quick and efficient collaboration across the world. The reality of much scientific data is that findings are stored on disparate university servers, making data vulnerable to being lost and inaccessible to other researchers focusing on related problems. Intersect set a goal to create a next-generation research platform, specifically designed for data-driven research and collaboration, with virtually no limits to the size of its facility.
In this video: Intersect CEO, Dr Ian Gibson explaining the challenge of consolidating Australia’s research data. (1min, 37s).
When Intersect secured funding from the Federal Government’s Research Data Storage Infrastructure (RDSI) project, it kick-started the process of building a New South Wales (NSW) node. The NSW node connects scientists across Australia and the world.
“Australia is amongst those who lead the world in per capita investment in data science infrastructure,” said Intersect CEO Dr Ian Gibson. “The need for innovation and expansion, given that data science is becoming more central to research, is increasing. In searching for the right provider, we were looking for a complete solution that enabled us to scale out infinitely,” he explained. “The technology platform had to provide storage capacity that would meet the needs of managing hundreds of different types of data.”
The need for innovation and expansion, given that data science is becoming more central to research, is increasing. In searching for the right provider, we were looking for a complete solution that enabled us to scale out infinitely, the technology platform had to provide storage capacity that would meet the needs of managing hundreds of different types of data.
Dr. Ian Gibson
CEO, Intersect Australia
In addition, Intersect needed to create a platform that could store data intelligently and make it accessible for teams of researchers so they could share data and progress their scientific studies without technical restraints. After a rigorous tendering process, Intersect selected Hitachi Data Systems, because of the robustness, flexibility and ease of management of the solution.
On the next page, we will explain why was Hitachi the right technology to choose?
