Webinar: CloudBank 2: Accelerating Science and Engineering Research in the Commercial Cloud

NSF CI Compass hosted webinar "CloudBank 2: Accelerating Science and Engineering Research in the Commercial Cloud," and featured Shava Smallen, principal investigator of the NSF CloudBank2 award, and co-PI and project manager for the original NSF CloudBank award; Rob Fatland, a member of the CloudBank support team, Research Computing Director at the University of Washington; and Eric Van Dusen, who leads CloudBank's classroom activites, and has worked to build the Data Science undergraduate major at UC Berekely.

This was originally hosted on July 8, 2025, and the original event can be viewed here.

Abstract:

CloudBank 2 will be a new service-based resource offered through the NSF ACCESS program to streamline and democratize access to commercial cloud resources for the research and education community. Initially supporting Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure, CloudBank 2 builds on the flexible, multi-cloud infrastructure established by CloudBank, which has been serving primarily computer science researchers since its launch in August 2020.

In this talk, we will introduce CloudBank 2 and explore how it can support Major and Mid-Scale Facilities projects. We’ll outline the anticipated timeline for CloudBank2 availability, explain our allocation strategy, and highlight the support services and classroom tools designed to help researchers and educators make the most of commercial cloud resources.

Speaker Bios:

Shava Smallen

Shava Smallen is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the NSF CloudBank 2 award and serves as a co-PI and project manager for the original NSF CloudBank award. She designed and led the development of the CloudBank portal and has over 20 years of experience working on NSF-funded cyberinfrastructure projects. Her work spans both infrastructure tools for monitoring andmanaging cyberinfrastructure, as well as researcher-focused tools that simplify runningapplications in complex environments.

Rob Fatland

Rob Fatland is part of the CloudBank support team and has worked for the past decade as a Research Computing Director at the University of Washington. His career has concerned the application of technology to research with emphasis in the earth sciences.

Eric Van Dusen

Eric Van Dusen leads CloudBank’s classroom activities and has spent the past eight years helping to build the Data Science undergraduate major at UC Berkeley. His work includes designing and teaching new courses, training faculty to incorporate interactive computing into their teaching, and serving on the steering committee for the campus-wide JupyterHub infrastructure. Van Dusen is also a community builder in the field of Data Science education—he co-leads the National Workshop on Data Science Education and the California Alliance for Data Science Education. In addition, he leads initiatives to support Community Colleges in teaching Data Science through professional development, JupyterHub support, and collaborative curriculum development.

The webinar recording will be made available soon.