AWS Public Sector Blog
Category: Education
Amazon EC2 Spot Instances for scientific workflows: Using generative AI to assess availability
In recent years, public sector organizations have found success running their scientific data processing workloads on Amazon Web Services. As the number of workloads increase with the massive data volume and complex scientific simulations, organizations are looking for ways to optimize cost while maintaining research momentum. Amazon EC2 Spot Instances presents a compelling option to run unused Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) capacity with an up to 90 percent discount compared to On-Demand prices. However, the intermittent nature of Spot Instances often requires careful consideration, especially when handling time-sensitive mission-critical workloads. In this post, we discuss how organizations can effectively identify opportunities to use Spot Instances and Amazon Q Business to develop an enhanced Spot Instance analysis.
4 best practices to enhance research IT operations with AWS
Academic research IT departments around the world face the same challenge: how to balance their existing on-premises infrastructure with the opportunities of cloud computing. At the Supercomputing 2024 (SC24) conference, Amazon Web Services hosted a panel featuring two research IT leaders: Circe Tsui, associate director of solutions architecture at Emory University in the Office of Information Technology, and Dr. Robert Shen, director of the RMIT AWS Supercomputing Hub (RACE) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). During the panel, Tsui and Shen shared how their institutions use AWS to augment and enhance their research operations with more scalability, security, and collaboration alongside their on-premises infrastructure. Read this post to learn more.
Coming to a city near you: AWS State, Local, and Education Learning Days
By 2026, more than 90 percent of organizations worldwide will face challenges related to an IT skills shortage. Artificial intelligence skills are among the most in-demand, but a variety of cloud skills like architecture, data management and storage, and software development are among the top 10 needed IT skills. To address these needs, Amazon Web Services hosts AWS State, Local, and Education Learning Days, a series of no-cost in-person events nationwide. These one-day events provide IT professionals and business executives in state and local government (SLG) and education with hands-on learning opportunities to grow their cloud skills. Read this post to learn more.
How Amazon Redshift ML can help enhance outcomes for underperforming, at-risk students
Higher education institutions are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs and provide students with a clear path to degree completion. Data analytics can help these institutions proactively identify and support at-risk students, allowing them to develop personalized intervention strategies to improve student retention and graduation rates. In this post, we’ll explore how Amazon Redshift ML, a powerful machine learning (ML) capability within the Amazon Redshift data warehouse, can enable higher education leaders to quickly predict student outcomes and communicate insights to key stakeholders.
Govplace helps NIH Office of Portfolio Analysis scale on demand and reduce research costs on AWS
As the primary agency of the US government responsible for biomedical and public health research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is one of the leading medical research centers in the world. The NIH Office of Portfolio Analysis (OPA) is tasked with helping NIH prioritize its research. OPA wanted to find a better way to optimize its cloud costs as its analytical research demands continued to grow. That need led OPA to work with AWS Partner Govplace, a systems integrator and solution provider for the public sector. Read this post to learn more about how OPA reduced research costs and scaled on demand.
53 new or updated datasets available on the Registry of Open Data on AWS
The AWS Open Data Sponsorship Program makes high-value, cloud-optimized datasets publicly available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS works with data providers to democratize access to data by making it available to the public for analysis on AWS; develop new cloud-based techniques, formats, and tools that lower the cost of working with data; and encourage the development of communities that benefit from access to shared datasets. The full list of publicly available datasets are on the Registry of Open Data on AWS and are now also discoverable on AWS Data Exchange. This quarter, AWS released 53 new or updated datasets and you can learn more about them in this post.
How ZNotes’ Amazon Bedrock chatbot addresses educational inequality globally
ZNotes, a social-impact startup on a mission to end educational inequality, primarily reaching young learners aged 14-18, is working to bridge this gap by providing free access to high-quality notes, videos, and quizzes that are co-created with top students to foster a collaborative peer-learning community. With Amazon Web Services (AWS), ZNotes enhances its ability to deliver accessible, high-quality learning experiences, ensuring that students—regardless of their background can receive the support they need to succeed. Read this post to learn more.
Anthology launches omnichannel student services transformation with Amazon Connect
Learn how Anthology is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop a comprehensive omnichannel contact center strategy powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI) to transform the future of student support.
Reduce IT costs by implementing automatic shutdown for Amazon EC2 instances
To remain viable and continue to fulfill their mission, educational institutions are constantly seeking ways to optimize their IT costs while maintaining high-quality services. One often overlooked area for potential savings is the management of cloud resources, particularly Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances. Many universities and colleges find themselves facing unexpected costs when EC2 instances are left running during off-peak hours or periods of inactivity. In this post, we explore how higher education customers can implement automatic shutdown mechanisms for EC2 instances, significantly reducing cloud expenses.
Benchmark Education accelerates grading and boosts student feedback with generative AI on AWS
Learn how Benchmark Education Company worked closely with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to build a grading tool powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI) to help teachers dramatically reduce the time they spend grading open-ended assessments—while maintaining accuracy, privacy, and trust.