Course: SC12 Tutorial

Infrastructure-as-a-service cloud computing has recently emerged as a promising outsourcing paradigm: it has been widely embraced commercially and is also beginning to make inroads in scientific communities. Although popular, understanding how science can leverage it is still in its infancy. Specific and accurate information is needed for scientific communities to understand whether this new paradigm is worthwhile and how to use it. Our objective is to introduce infrastructure cloud computing and elastic tools to scientific communities. We will provide up-to-date information about features and services that benefit science and explain patterns of use that can best fit scientific applications. We will highlight opportunities, conquer myths, and equip the attendees with a better understanding of the relevance of cloud computing to their scientific domain. Our tutorial mixes the discussion of various aspects of cloud computing for science, such as performance, elasticity, privacy, with practical exercises using clouds and state-of-the- art tools.