Running high resolution coastal models in forecast systems: Moving from workstations and HPC cluster to cloud resources.

Computational forecast systems (CFS) are essential modelling tools for coastal management by providing water dynamics predictions. Nowadays CFS are processed in dedicated workstations, fulfilling quality control through automatic comparison with field data. Recently, CFS has been successfully ported to High Performance Computing (HPC) resources, maintained by highly-specialized staff in these complex environments. The need to increase the available resources for more demanding applications and to enhance the portability for use in non-scientific institutions has promoted the search for more flexible and user-friendly approaches. The scalability and flexibility of cloud resources, with dedicated services for facilitating their use, makes them an attractive option.