The biggest grant NSU received, the university starts commercial research and puts up the capital into 170 professors, postgraduates and developers working to find topical business solutions.
Parallels庐, a leader in hosting and cloud services enablement and cross-platform solutions, launches a Commercial Research Center which is to become the first at NSU and one of few such centers at Russian universities. The Center aims to conduct research on orders fr om Parallels and later from any other commercial organization. It is financed by Parallels itself and from the grant of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation allocated to NSU in January 2013 for the period of 3 years in the amount of 637 mln rubles (or about $20 mln USD). Launching the research center is a step in creating a software platform for hosting automation.
An organizational and management structure was established at NSU according to the request from Parallels and now counts more than 70 university staff including students and postgraduates. The other 100 developers work at the Parallels R&D Center in Novosibirsk. Together they discuss tasks on creating software and the research results obtained, prepare the results for publications in journals and execute patent applications. In the course of their work the research group has invented a few technologies. One of them, a unique technology in the domain of load distribution in cloud by means of optimal data management, allows launching applications twice or even four times as fast as before. Another invention deals with support of applications with sensitive data while using the cloud capacity.
鈥淲ork of any science-based company, e.g. software development, can be compared to an equation wh ere one of the unknown variables is the way of its implementation. How to reach impossible?鈥� wonders Sergey Oleynikov, Director of Software Development, Parallels Panel Products, Novosibirsk. 鈥淎pple had created 100+ variants of a touch screen keyboard before assembling an iPhone prototype, for instance. We refer to NSU in the search of the unknown variable, and together are going to create much more efficient software for cloud service providers than that we have at our disposal.鈥�
This project from Parallels starts the process of placing orders for research with NSU, which will then allow any commercial company to apply to the university for doing research tailored to their objectives. It is going to provide NSU with the necessary funding in its turn.
鈥淚t is not often in Russia that a group of students, professors and postgraduates together with company employees cooperate to develop projects topical for the current market and business goals,鈥� comments Prof. Mikhail Lavrentyev, Vice-Rector for Computer Sciences at NSU, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics. 鈥淢ost Russian universities cannot do it. Parallels creates a management system to cooperate with business inside NSU from scratch, and we clearly see obvious benefits鈥�.
For reference: Parallels is a global developer of software for hosting and cloud services enablement and cross-platform solutions (Mac virtualization and remote access solutions from mobile devices under iOS and Android). Parallels began operations in 2000 and has developed into a company with more than 900 employees across offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Its amount of business on American, European and Asian markets reaches 90%, but it has developments centers in Russia ()
The project on creating a software platform for hosting automation is implemented under a grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation received by NSU through a competitive grant process. The amount of the grant is 637 mln rubles including 337 mln rubles funded by Parallels. The term of the project is 3 years during which students, postgraduates and NSU research staff are supposed to do the research required for the software development on behalf and by order of Parallels.
