Urban flood risk modelling is a highly topical example of intensive computational processing. Such processing is\r\nincreasingly required by a range of organisations including local government, engineering consultancies and the\r\ninsurance industry to fulfil statutory requirements and provide professional services. As the demands for this type of\r\nwork become more common, then ownership of high-end computational resources is warranted but if use is more\r\nsporadic and with tight deadlines then the use of Cloud computing could provide a cost-effective alternative.\r\nHowever, uptake of the Cloud by such organisations is often thwarted by the perceived technical barriers to entry. In\r\nthis paper we present an architecture that helps to simplify the process of performing parameter sweep work on an\r\nInfrastructure as a Service Cloud. A parameter sweep version of the urban flood modelling, analysis and visualisation\r\nsoftware ââ?¬Å?CityCatââ?¬Â was developed and deployed to estimate spatial and temporal flood risk at a whole city scale ââ?¬â?? far\r\nlarger than had previously been possible. Performing this work on the Cloud allowed us access to more computing\r\npower than we would have been able to purchase locally for such a short time-frame (~21 months of processing in a\r\nsingle calendar month). We go further to illustrate the considerations, both functional and non-functional, which need\r\nto be addressed if such an endeavour is to be successfully achieved.
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