Fortissimo Marketplace: Cloud-based HPC for business

The Marketplace was developed during the Fortissimo project, which ended in December 2016. It offers advanced modelling and simulation services to industry, with an initial focus on manufacturing applications.

Users of the Marketplace pay only for the amount of service they need. This is a potential game-changer for many companies, as it allows them to trial the use of advanced simulation and modelling with very low risks, and allows them to build up their use steadily.

Spreading the benefits of HPC

The Fortissimo Marketplace gives access to services in a way that avoids high-risk investments and disruptive step-changes in the way companies work. 

The result will be that the benefits of HPC are opened up to small and medium sized companies that cannot afford to run their own HPC systems. This support for small companies, which are recognised as the driving force behind economic growth, is one of the key objectives of the Innovation for Manufacturing SMEs (I4MS) programme which funded Fortissimo.

The Fortissimo project carried out over 50 experiments to prove the concept of providing services on cloud-based HPC, with many of these experiments leading to commercial services that are being brought into the Marketplace. 

As reported in previous issues of EPCC News, the results of Fortissimo show that end-users can gain rapid benefits including:

• Reduced time to market for new products

• Improved product quality

• Lower costs of production

• More efficient use of materials. 

Open for business

The Marketplace is open to new suppliers as well as end-users. Software owners and providers can develop their own solutions based on the HPC systems that power Fortissimo, meaning they can scale up to meet the demand for their services without having to invest in expensive new equipment. Instead they can focus on their application expertise and provide new innovative services that will help expand their customer base.

For users and suppliers of HPC application services, the Fortissimo Marketplace is now the place to do business.

Fortissimo is a Framework 7 project. It has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No 609029.