Author: Vitalija Kolisova

How long does it take for SMEs to go through the data computation process and get applicable results for their day-to-day business? How much does it cost? The answer depends on the skills of the company and the computation system used.

Usually, SMEs do not have the skills required to perform computations within the house, therefore, they need to outsource such services from a third party. It takes additional time and money to find a perfect fit. Then, the company may perform computation on their own infrastructure, which usually means regular computers and largely time-consuming process or they can obtain computing power but it is rather costly option.

BalticLSC is a low-coding platform which aims at shortening the process of getting computation results and reducing the cost to the minimum for SMEs to transform their data into decision making and profit. This point has been emphasized by BalticLSc project coordinator Michal Smialek during an online event “Duomenys, duomenys, duomenys: kaip jie padeda kurti inovacijas mažose ir vidutinėse įmonėse?” organized by Lithuanian partners, Lithuanian Innovation Centre including.

The platform has generated some great interest from the attendees as they have shown curiosity for the way the system operates, how much it costs to use it and how it is different from other systems available on the market. This shows that there is definitely a need for such products for SMEs to be able to utilize their data better and more efficient.  

BalticLSC partners have met online for a full day meeting before the summer holiday period to discuss running activities and plans for the final 6th semester. The consortium has emphasized the need to validate low-code platform for SMEs and large-scale computations environment for computation power providers. In order to that, more pilots for BalticLSC platform are needed. But how to get them or get to them: this is the question deliberated throughout the whole meeting.

According to researches and expertise done by business and computation scientists and experts, when it comes to high power computing (HPC) or large-scale computing (LSC), Europe is lagging behind USA and China. What is more, the majority of the companies is not yet ready to embrace HPC or LSC in their daily activities and those, that are already doing that, may not want to switch to an alternative solution, especially if the current one works just fine.

Regardless of the obstacles the consortium has encountered while attracting potential pilot cases, partners decided to not give up. New ideas and initiatives on how to attract SMEs with HPC or LSC challenges were shared: starting with different marketing approach and finishing with switching the focus from SMEs only to a wider range of possible users. Partners still have another 6 months and a bunch of workshops planned to come up with companies and other potential system users who could greatly benefit from the platform and also provide a feedback about the things that could be further improved.

In case, you or your company is interested in doing low-code data computations on a large-scale computing system for free, please contact any of the partners listed under the contact section on the page. You can also see and check the demo version of the platform here.

The online meeting has also marked the farewell from Swedish partner RISE as it opted to stay out of the additional 6^th semester initiated in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Partners have also discussed the possibility of having a final project meeting live sometime in September this year. It would almost two years since project partners had met face to face the last time. Currently, the possible date for the meeting is still being deliberated.

Living in the world, where data is considered to be the “oil of the 21st century”, BalticLSC, an innovative ‘low-code’ platform, facilitates development of computation “bricks”, creation of applications from ready “bricks”, and application execution in a secure large-scale computations environment for SMEs to use.

Get your business going with BalticLSC platform! Join an online workshop “Giving value to your data: Low-code computing platform” and learn more about the platform, how it can benefit your business and what the terms and conditions of using it are.

See you 8 June at 10 AM EEST!

Register for the event here: https://lnkd.in/gGATkdH.

In order to see if the large-scale computing platform created by the partnership is applicable by the SMEs, the first online workshop was organized for companies with potential pilots to test the platform firsthand.

Companies were treated to a short presentation about the project and its aims as well as the development process of the BalticLSC platform. Ultimately, SMEs had a chance to login into the system and test its functionalities, to see how the platform works, what can be done with it, what type of data computation it can perform, how fast it takes etc.

BalticLSC is a low-code platform that facilitates development of computation “bricks”, creation of applications from ready “bricks”, and application execution in a secure large-scale computations’ environment. It also serves as a platform for computation power providers of various size, to market their computation resources.

During the aforementioned workshop, the platform was introduced primarily to SMEs in a limited attendance, however, more elaborated workshops are planned for summer and autumn periods to be organized individually by every partner involved. There is also a plan to organize some more workshops for the computation power providers to gather their feedback and improve the platform even more.

Check our news for further details on forthcoming workshops.

Technical partners have prepared a demo version of the platform for anyone who is interested in the functionalities and possibilities of the BalticLSC to test and experience it for themselves.

The demo version is available here. It does not require potential end-users to register or login to it, as it is already open to everyone who would like to check it out. Since it is only a demo version, its functionalities and the number of computations as well as computing power are limited. What is more, any tasks or computations set by the testers will be automatically removed at the end of the day so that the other potential testers could also test the system.

In order to understand how the platform works and what can be done with it, the consortium has also prepared instruction videos. They explain all the steps and functionalities that need to be applied in order for the system to perform a desired computation. The videos are available here.

In case you would like to have a full run at the platform with the real data and computation applications developed specifically for your company’s needs, please contact any of the project partner regardless of the region they represent.

Living in the world, where data is considered to be the “oil of the 21^st century”, our consortium takes great measures to ensure that any data uploaded to the BalticLSC platform is safe from any illegal activity.

How do we do it? For starters, the platform uses well known and already globally tested solutions to make sure that data is as safe as possible while within the reciprocity of the platform. What is more, the platform does not allow permanent storage either of the data, or the computation results. It also employs trusted and secure communication protocols, implements separation of computation applications and containerization. Finally, all users will select manual computation power providers leaving it up to them to choose the possible safest one.

If you would like to learn more about security measures applied in BalticLSC platform, please check this video below.

BalticLSC consortium partners met for the first time in 2021 to discuss the major outcomes of the project set for the forthcoming spring.

BalticLSC platform together with pilot cases and workshops to gather feedback from the potential end-users are among the major activities of the project planned for the forthcoming six months. With the demo version almost ready to introduce platform’s possibilities and functionalities to SMEs, business partners are gathering their resources for the final outreach for pilot cases, and the available demo version would definitely serve as an additional incentive for companies to get involved.

During the meeting, partners discussed the possibilities of attracting more pilot cases and what needs to be done to get more companies aware of BalticLSC platform. Partners shared their suggestions and insights gathered from the previous attempts to attract SMEs. Currently, the project already has some companies to work with and further develop the possibilities of the platform. However, partners anticipate that successful pilot cases could additionally attract even more companies to test the platform.

The partnership also dedicated a lot of time to the workshop planning. A workshop on organizing the workshops was held where business partners discussed the content, structure and agenda of the forthcoming workshops as well as the number of workshops that had to be held. In the meantime, the technical partners were working out the details of the platform and how to make it even more efficient as well as discussing the application of available pilot cases.

Consortium is also preparing instruction videos for potential end-users to ease their way into a platform. The two videos that were prepared last year will be later replaced with a more user-centered ones to make an experience of using a platform a smooth one. New videos will be uploaded on slightly updated website as it needs to incorporate the login to the platform as well as the demo version on how to use it. Partners expect to have everything ready by the very beginning of spring.

Haven‘t got enough processing power to go over to the coming New Year?

Join Baltic Large-Scale Computing platform and we will transfer you to 2021 immediately!

In order to become a member of BalticLSC platfrom, please fill out this form first and contact any of the partners from this list.

Happy Holidays!

Our goals, means and opportunities we provide for businesses to embrace the world of large-scale computing – just in one video. The lead partner, Warsaw University of Technology, has made a video on the usability of BalticLSC platform.

Check out the ways in which BalticLSC can help your business and profesional endeveurs grow!