Meeting peak performance demands with on-demand resources via a Lenovo Cloud Solution Provider agreement empowers Ducati Corse engineers to crunch more data at peak times, for faster insight into race performance.
Performance on race day is the culmination of months of preparation away from the track. Back at Ducati Corse HQ, engineers use Lenovo high-performance computing (HPC) technology to run complex simulations that help them to optimize every component of the race bikes—from aerodynamics to engine controls to weight distribution.
To build and refine these simulations, Ducati Corse collects huge amounts of data via about 50 sensors embedded in each bike. Over a single race weekend, Ducati collects 100 GB of data from the eight Ducati Desmosedici GP bikes racing on track. The faster Ducati Corse can process that data, the faster it can extract valuable insights, and the sooner it can put them into action—and speed ahead of competitors.
Extending to the cloud
With more and more data to process post-race, Ducati Corse looked for a way to rapidly scale up its HPC resources at peak times. Technology partner Lenovo had the answer: cloud bursting.
Cloud bursting is an application configuration that allows you to ‘burst’ into the public cloud when on-premises infrastructure reaches or nears capacity. This enables you to seamlessly scale up resources at peak times—allowing the team to handle unpredictable loads with ease.
Flexibility fuels innovation
On Lenovo’s recommendation, Ducati Corse chose to augment its powerful on-premises Lenovo HPC cluster with the ability to burst into the Microsoft Azure Cloud when demand surges.
Ducati Corse signed a Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) agreement with Lenovo, making additional power and services available on demand to enable a dynamic response to unpredictable requirements—while maintaining the simplicity of Lenovo as a single technology partner.
Davide Barana, technical director at Ducati Corse, appreciates the flexibility that this hybrid infrastructure brings, which will help to accelerate innovation.
As Davide says: “The only thing that we can reliably predict about our future technology demands is that they will increase in scale. By uniting the power of our on-premises Lenovo cluster with the ability to access complementary Microsoft Azure resources, we’re guaranteeing that we can thrive in a fast-evolving world.”
