Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP) Boosting long-term economic development with cutting-edge collaborative research
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- America
Country
- Canada
Product
- IBM Cognos Business Intelligence
- IBM InfoSphere BigInsights
- IBM InfoSphere Streams
- IBM SPSS Analytical Decision Management
- IBM SPSS Modeler
- IBM SPSS Statistics
- IBM Blue Gene/Q
- IBM Power Systems
Tech Stack
- IBM POWER8 processor-based servers
- Field-Programmable Gate Arrays
- IBM analytics software
- IBM Blue Gene/Q technology
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Innovation Output
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Education
- Healthcare & Hospitals
- Utilities
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Edge Computing & Edge Intelligence
- Predictive Maintenance
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Data Science Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP) is a research and development consortium that pairs academic and industry researchers with advanced computing tools to fuel innovation leadership in Canada within the areas of agile computing, health, water, energy, cities, mining, advanced manufacturing, digital media and cybersecurity. SOSCIP members include Carleton University, Laurier University, McMaster University, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, the University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, Ryerson University, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, Western University, York University, Ontario Centres of Excellence and the IBM Canada Research and Development Centre. The Federal Government of Canada, the Province of Ontario and IBM Canada have invested more than CAD210 million (USD167 million) to create this unique innovation cluster.
The Challenge
SOSCIP aimed to develop an attractive ecosystem that would help to keep research talent and startups in Ontario. The goal was to connect leading academic institutions with small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to provide a competitive edge by accelerating research. SOSCIP and its partners wanted to develop intellectual property such as patents, and support the commercialization of research results through collaborative projects. As the SOSCIP consortium was forming, the organization sought a lead industrial partner to establish the computing technologies and collaborative research and development model upon which the consortium was founded.
The Solution
The consortium has deployed four advanced computing platforms to support ground-breaking research, all based on IBM solutions. The first platform, designed to handle large-scale distributed applications that require massive parallel processing power, is Canada’s fastest supercomputer, based on IBM Blue Gene/Q technology. The second platform, for agile computing, uses a combination of IBM POWER8® processor-based servers and Field-Programmable Gate Arrays to support applications including real-time data stream processing, machine learning and physical systems simulation. Thirdly, the Large Memory System platform offers a virtual symmetric multiprocessing environment running IBM analytics software for data-intensive projects involving in-memory databases, key-value storage and large computations. The fourth platform deployed by SOSCIP is Canada’s first research-dedicated cloud analytics platform, uniquely providing access to a broad suite of IBM analytics solutions—including IBM InfoSphere® Streams, Hadoop-based IBM InfoSphere BigInsights™, IBM Cognos® and IBM SPSS®—that can be combined with other software to create customized virtual research environments.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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