Title

AWS re:Invent 2022 - Boston University elevates learning w/Red Hat OpenShift Data Science (PRT208)

Summary

• Kabilan Mahendran, the global lead for the Red Hat and AWS alliance, introduced the session, highlighting the partnership's 10 years of innovation.
• Chuck Swoboda and Frank Lavinia from the Red Hat Cloud Services team joined Kabilan.
• Jonathan Upavu, a Boston University Professor of Computer Science, could not attend but provided a video.
• The session covered the Red Hat OpenShift service on AWS (ROSA) and the OpenShift Data Science solution.
• A demo of the solution built for Boston University was presented by Frank Lavinia.
• AWS is a comprehensive cloud platform with a broad adoption rate, offering over 200 services in various regions and availability zones.
• Red Hat OpenShift is a turnkey application platform powered by Kubernetes, providing developer-friendly abstractions for building, deploying, and running applications.
• ROSA is a jointly managed solution by Red Hat and AWS, offering a managed turnkey application platform with flexible pricing and comprehensive security.
• Red Hat OpenShift Data Science (Rhodes) is a cloud service running on ROSA, providing Jupyter Notebooks as a service.
• Boston University leveraged Rhodes to create a data science environment for students, termed "Learning as a Service."
• The solution allowed students to access a full-fledged Linux experience and data science tools without installing software on their devices.
• The architecture of the solution was explained, emphasizing the ease of use for students and faculty and the operational efficiency for the university.
• Boston University experienced significant improvements in operational efficiency, reduction in student developer setup time, and a decrease in professors' time spent on technical support.
• The session concluded with a call to action to try ROSA and Rhodes, now available in the AWS Marketplace.

Insights

• The partnership between Red Hat and AWS has been long-standing and has evolved to include native support for Red Hat products on AWS, such as ROSA.
• ROSA's managed service model significantly reduces the operational burden on organizations, allowing them to focus on application development and innovation.
• The use of Rhodes at Boston University demonstrates the potential for cloud services to transform educational environments by providing scalable, accessible, and secure platforms for learning.
• The success story at Boston University can serve as a model for other educational institutions looking to enhance their computer science and data science curricula.
• The integration of ROSA and Rhodes into AWS Marketplace simplifies procurement and billing for customers, aligning with the cloud's promise of ease of use and flexibility.
• The session highlighted the importance of cloud services in enabling data-driven organizations and the role of AWS and Red Hat in supporting this transformation.