In this paper, we report the main accomplishments obtained in the context of the CloudHPC project. Accepted in response to the BRICS Pilot Call 2016, the project gathered researchers from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), the St. Petersburg State University (SPbSU), and Beijing Normal University (BNU). Its main objective was to identify cloud computing aspects that can be explored to provide a far-reaching, flexible, and efficient environment for running HPC applications. In addition to the main results, we also discuss the lessons learned and perspectives for future research in the area.