Altair Case Studies Powering Drug Discovery: High-Performance Computing at Johnson & Johnson

	Powering Drug Discovery: High-Performance Computing at Johnson & Johnson Altair

Powering Drug Discovery: High-Performance Computing at Johnson & Johnson

Altair

Technology Category	Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries	Consumer Goods Pharmaceuticals
Applicable Functions	Product Research & Development Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Construction Management Infrastructure Inspection
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	Johnson & Johnson, a global healthcare giant, required on-demand compute capacity at scale for its research, particularly for Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which was working on the COVID-19 vaccine. The company needed to easily scale down this capacity when not in use, a feat only achievable with cloud infrastructure. Janssen was operating over 10 production High-Performance Computing (HPC) clusters on Amazon Web Services (AWS), used by scientists and developers worldwide. However, they were seeking an off-the-shelf solution to replace the open-source Grid Engine and a cloud management tool that no longer supported their preferred vendor. The challenges included accommodating existing infrastructure and systems that had evolved over a decade, managing a complex networking setup, and integrating into configuration and change management systems. Furthermore, each cluster was configured differently, adding to the complexity. Read More
About Customer	Johnson & Johnson is the world's largest healthcare business and a top-50 Fortune 500 company. It produces pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer goods that benefit a billion people worldwide. Johnson & Johnson owns Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a company that uses science to combat diseases. Janssen created the 1-dose COVID-19 vaccine that's preventing infection and saving lives in over 100 countries around the world. This research-driven organization relies on high-performance computing (HPC) to power the discovery and production of effective, broadly available pharmaceuticals. Read More
Solution	To address these challenges, Janssen's workload management software was upgraded to Altair® Grid Engine® and Altair® NavOps® was deployed to manage the company's complex cloud deployments. This solution integrated seamlessly with AWS cloud services. The package met Janssen's requirements for automated creation and scaling of clusters, compliance with internal security policies and networking, compatibility with both commercial and homegrown applications, and GXP compliance. It included cgroups for resource allocation, Docker integration for containerized workloads, and REST API. The result was a simplified, automated, and extensible Janssen HPC infrastructure. With the Altair orchestration layer, Johnson & Johnson can scale on demand in a complex multi-tenant environment. The team can use current configuration components to quickly and easily create additional clusters as needed. Altair’s infrastructure-as-code solution included complete UI/CLI/API configurability, flexible configuration and integration options, and the ability to template necessary components and easily edit configuration differences. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing

Applicable Industries

Consumer Goods

Pharmaceuticals

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Construction Management

Infrastructure Inspection

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

Johnson & Johnson, a global healthcare giant, required on-demand compute capacity at scale for its research, particularly for Janssen Pharmaceuticals, which was working on the COVID-19 vaccine. The company needed to easily scale down this capacity when not in use, a feat only achievable with cloud infrastructure. Janssen was operating over 10 production High-Performance Computing (HPC) clusters on Amazon Web Services (AWS), used by scientists and developers worldwide. However, they were seeking an off-the-shelf solution to replace the open-source Grid Engine and a cloud management tool that no longer supported their preferred vendor. The challenges included accommodating existing infrastructure and systems that had evolved over a decade, managing a complex networking setup, and integrating into configuration and change management systems. Furthermore, each cluster was configured differently, adding to the complexity.

About Customer

Johnson & Johnson is the world's largest healthcare business and a top-50 Fortune 500 company. It produces pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer goods that benefit a billion people worldwide. Johnson & Johnson owns Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a company that uses science to combat diseases. Janssen created the 1-dose COVID-19 vaccine that's preventing infection and saving lives in over 100 countries around the world. This research-driven organization relies on high-performance computing (HPC) to power the discovery and production of effective, broadly available pharmaceuticals.

Solution

To address these challenges, Janssen's workload management software was upgraded to Altair® Grid Engine® and Altair® NavOps® was deployed to manage the company's complex cloud deployments. This solution integrated seamlessly with AWS cloud services. The package met Janssen's requirements for automated creation and scaling of clusters, compliance with internal security policies and networking, compatibility with both commercial and homegrown applications, and GXP compliance. It included cgroups for resource allocation, Docker integration for containerized workloads, and REST API. The result was a simplified, automated, and extensible Janssen HPC infrastructure. With the Altair orchestration layer, Johnson & Johnson can scale on demand in a complex multi-tenant environment. The team can use current configuration components to quickly and easily create additional clusters as needed. Altair’s infrastructure-as-code solution included complete UI/CLI/API configurability, flexible configuration and integration options, and the ability to template necessary components and easily edit configuration differences.

Impact #1	The implementation of Altair's solution has allowed Johnson & Johnson to continue innovating. With increased scalability and improved agility in operations, deployment, and management of HPC infrastructure, the team can perform science on demand. This flexibility enables them to tackle events like the COVID-19 pandemic at an enterprise level. The solution has also simplified the management of their complex cloud deployments, making it easier to create and scale clusters as needed. This has resulted in a more efficient and effective use of resources, enabling the company to focus more on its core mission of developing life-saving pharmaceuticals.

Impact #1

The implementation of Altair's solution has allowed Johnson & Johnson to continue innovating. With increased scalability and improved agility in operations, deployment, and management of HPC infrastructure, the team can perform science on demand. This flexibility enables them to tackle events like the COVID-19 pandemic at an enterprise level. The solution has also simplified the management of their complex cloud deployments, making it easier to create and scale clusters as needed. This has resulted in a more efficient and effective use of resources, enabling the company to focus more on its core mission of developing life-saving pharmaceuticals.

Benefit #1	Scalability limits from Janssen’s previous configuration were removed with the Altair solution
Benefit #2	Their clusters are now running at 3X the size of the previous implementation

Benefit #1

Scalability limits from Janssen’s previous configuration were removed with the Altair solution

Benefit #2

Their clusters are now running at 3X the size of the previous implementation

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Overview

Powering Drug Discovery: High-Performance Computing at Johnson & Johnson

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit