The Problem
SURF is a Dutch cooperative organization that provides IT services, primarily focusing on education and research institutions. They specialize in offering advanced and innovative IT infrastructure, including high-speed internet, cloud solutions, and data storage, aiming to facilitate top-tier research and education through cutting-edge technology.
SURF has over 100 Universities, Applied Universities and Research Institutes as it members. Being able to deliver higher quality education for robotics is important to many SURF members. SURF want to ensure it offers its members the most cutting edge innovations. Ensuring Robotics education in the Netherlands is able to compete globally. This includes having access to both the latest robotics tool-kits and the ability to harness and use complex cloud based capabilities.
Through collaboration with its members SURF has understood the main blockers for delivering world-class robotics courses today. Understanding that a standardised approach focused on modular design and access to the right resources is what is needed.
The Project
Moving from Asimovo to SURFAsimovo. The collaborative initiative between SURF and Asimovo is focused on developing versatile architectures and solutions. Our goal is to empower the research and education communities with seamless access to the platform. The integration covers three key areas:
*Dual-Access Workstations:* – Students need the flexibility to work either on their personal local workstations or cloud-based workstations.
*Versatile Computing Power:* Sometimes working on local laptops does not give sufficient processing power. This project integrates Asimovo to a diverse array of public cloud providers (via SURFcumulus, SRC, etc.), and SURF private cloud infrastructures (like Kubernetes and Openstack clusters). Looking ahead, we’ll be also exploring the integration of supercomputing capabilities, to further extend the computational reach.
*Seamless Robot-Hardware Data Integration:* In scenarios involving robot hardware, we’ll ensure that data collection and upload processes are streamlined.
The Solution
We are collaborating to understand the technical feasibility of SURF being able to offer its members a new service for helping provide and deliver Smart Robotics Education.
A SURFAsimovo platform could allow SURF members to mix and match access to people, projects, tool-kits and computing resources in a way that best fits the learning objectives of the course
Set up and teach robotics on the new cutting-edge platform Where you can design course in a way that everyone can work off the same project tool-kit and set up. The course organisers can easily share access and design different types of individual and team activities. The platform approach means it will also be easier to supervise and troubleshoot as courses progress. Institutes can allocate and control access to the latest cloud and computing resources.
The Outcome
The collaboration is just starting, and integration project is ongoing. The collaboration will be formally announced at the SURF Cloud event on March 7th. In parallel some initial universities are choosing to start with the existing Asimovo platform and switch to the new SURF-Asimovo solution when it becomes available. Both parties are working towards SURF-Asimovo being ready for the beginning of the 2024-2025 academic year.
“SURF have identified parallel areas of collaboration around the adoption of Asimovo’s Robotics Development Platform with an aim to help SURF members improve their educational quality and outcomes, while building and delivering cutting edge infrastructure.”
Giuseppe Gianquitto,
Tech Lead Cloud and Edge, SURF
Key PArtners
Announcement at SURF Cloud Event
March 7th
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