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The Microsoft Azure for Research

Thursday, 8. May 2014 - 13:49

The Microsoft Azure for Research project facilitates and accelerates scholarly and scientific research by enabling researchers to use the power of Microsoft Azure to perform big data computations in the cloud.

Microsoft Azure for Research Award program

Bi-monthly RFPs
Microsoft Research is soliciting proposals for the use of Microsoft Azure in research. We welcome research proposals from any branch of scholarly activity. We review these proposals on the fifteenth of even-numbered months (April, June, August, and so forth). The response so far has been outstanding, as a review of current grantees and their projects attests.

Special-opportunity RFPs
In addition to these standing, bi-monthly requests for proposals, we will periodically announce additional special-opportunity RFPs on specific cloud-based research topics. These topics will include community research data services, streaming instrument data to the cloud, machine learning in the cloud, large-scale image analysis, environmental science, astronomy, genomics, and urban science. These calls will be announced in our blog postings and described here.

Climate Data Initiative
Our second special call requests proposals from scientists and decision-makers for solutions that support the White House Climate Data Initiative’s goals of preparedness for and resilience to climate change impacts. Twelve months of free Microsoft Azure cloud-computing resources—including up to 180,000 hours of cloud-computing time and 20 terabytes of cloud storage—will go to 40 awardees selected from proposals submitted by the due date of June 15, 2014.

RFP for the Brazilian scientific community
This RFP solicits proposals for the use of Microsoft Azure in research specifically from the Brazilian scientific community. We welcome research proposals from any branch of scholarly activity. Please use the word "Brazil" in the title of your proposal so that we can identify it for this RFP. The due date for proposals for this special call is June 15, 2014.

Program eligibility
To qualify for our awards program, applicants must be affiliated with an academic institution or non-profit research laboratory. In addition to individual investigator projects, we are interested in projects that will support access to services and data of value to a collaboration or community.

Proposal submission
Your proposal should not exceed three pages in length. It should include resource requirement estimates (number of core, storage requirements, and so forth) for your project.

• Learn more and apply for a research award on the proposal submission site.
• Proposal titles for the special award program must begin with a key phrase for identification purposes.
• For the Climate Data Initiative (proposals due June 15, 2014), the phrase is “CDI."
• For the RFP for the Brazilian scientific community (proposals due June 15, 2014), the phrase is "Brazil."

• For additional information, consult our Frequently Asked Questions or send email to azurerfp@microsoft.com.

Application deadlines:

• Bi-monthly request for proposals: June 15, 2014
• Climate Data Initiative: June 15, 2014
• RFP for the Brazilian scientific community: June 15, 2014

Selected projects
Results have been announced for the first four rounds of proposals ending on October 15, 2013, December 15, 2013, February 15, 2013, and April 15, 2013. Winning proposals will be awarded large allocations of Microsoft Azure storage and compute resources for a period of one year.
• Read abstracts for the selected projects

Access Microsoft Azure resources
In addition to the research awards, there are several other ways to access free Microsoft Azure resources. These include the 90-day free trial that is available on the Microsoft Azure Portal and the MSDN subscription. You may also be interested in using Microsoft Azure in your classes.

Microsoft Azure for Research training
Microsoft Research offers cloud training classes at various times worldwide to inform researchers how Microsoft Azure can accelerate your research.
• Learn more and view the current training schedule on the training information page.

Source: 
research.microsoft.com
Tags: 
Microsoft Azure for Research