From the European Space Agency (ESA) to the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) – the first Big Science Business Forum drew more than 1,000 scientists from 500 different institutes and 30 countries to Copenhagen at the end of February. Deutsche Telekom was also there. Under the motto “Science data at your fingertips,” the Bonn-based provider presented the European research cloud Helix Nebula – The Science Cloud (HNSciCloud for short), a hybrid cloud platform enabling scientists to share data and tap scalable processing power to analyze it. The technological foundation for it all? The Open Telekom Cloud based on OpenStack.

There were lots of visitors to the Deutsche Telekom stand – and not just because Telekom was the sole IT provider there. Scientists were intrigued by how massive processing power from the cloud could benefit their work. Plus, many researchers are already familiar with systems based on OpenStack. So cloud resources from the Open Telekom Cloud are the perfect solution:  For example, for complex data analysis from the particle accelerator at CERN or processing satellite data from the EU and ESA Earth observation program Copernicus.

“Many scientists were very interested in our cloud solution and Helix Nebula during the forum,” says Jurry de la Mar, Account Director at T-Systems. Some of the visitors to the Telekom stand included ESA Director General Jan Wörner, CERN CIO Frédéric Hemmer and Philippe Froissard, director of Research Infrastructure at the EU Commission.

Besides the traditional trade fair stand there was also a chance for some speed dating. Using an app especially made for the forum, participants could invite each other to informal meetings. This was a great success: The Telekom team was able to meet with several researchers in order to learn about their specific needs, as well as introduce them to the Open Telekom Cloud and Helix Nebula. “There was considerable interest from researchers,” says de la Mar. “Out of 1,000 participants, many were very relevant for us. I hope that the forum will return next year.”