Is Cloud Computing the Solution for Brazilian Researchers?

Over the last decade Brazilian government has considerably increased the investment in Research and Development (R&D) and especially in computer science research. Although investments have increased, they are not enough to fulfill the computational needs for all Brazilian researchers since there are many universities and research centers that are not able to acquire a cluster. Cloud computing can play an important role in providing an adequate infrastructure for researchers to do their research and produce valuable results, empowering Brazil in the scientific arena. This paper presents a brief evaluation on how cloud computing can improve Brazilian research by providing an adequate computational infrastructure for researchers.