Thats how my department uses the cloud--we have an image we store up at AWS geared towards a couple of tasks and we spin up a big instance when we need it, run

Thats how my department uses the cloud--we have an image we store up at AWS geared towards a couple of tasks and we spin up a big instance when we need it, run the task, pull out the results, then stop the machine. Total cost sub-100 dollars. If we had to go the HPC group we'd have to fight with them to get the environment configured, get access to the system, get payment setup, teach the faculty to use the environment, etc. Its just a pain for very little gain.