Computing Resources in the Faculty
Basic Computing
Every researcher is equipped with a standard laptop with a good processor, at least 16gb RAM, and an SSD. While this is helpful for basic tasks, it may lack the power needed to do serious computing for our researchers. UU provides the Software Center to install new software, but if the software you need is not listed there, you can request admin rights to install software on your machine.
Linux
Windows Subsystems for Linux (WSL)
You may also need Linux for some purposes, a good first option is to enable Windows Subsystems for Linux (WSL) on your laptop. The Geo Data Team suggests using the long-term release versions of Ubuntu that are available with WSL, however other options such as Debian, AlmaLinux, and OpenSUSE are available. While not a full Linux experience, it can be a good starting point for these needs.
Linux Virtual Machines
You can set up a Linux virtual machine on your Windows laptop with Hyper-V or VirtualBox.
Hyper-V is the built-in hypervisor for Windows, but requires constant administrator access to run.
VirtualBox is an open-source hypervisor from Oracle, and only requires administrator access to install. For extra functionality, the VirtualBox Extension Pack is available free of charge for educational use.
Linux on your Laptop
You are allowed to install Linux on your work laptop, however you will lose software support from ITS and GeoICT and will need to resolve issues on your own. Hardware support is still available to you in this situation if it is clear that there is an issue with your hardware.
High Performance Computers (HPC)
High-Performance Computing (HPC) involves harnessing computer power/performance beyond standard desktops or workstations to solve problems of high complexity. Researchers can benefit from diverse platforms such as supercomputers/computer clusters and cloud-based services. Each one of them differs in user accessibility, computational power, software availability, and security measures. These kinds of resources are accessible through institutional services/systems, national facilities (e.g. SURF) or commercial providers (e.g. Amazon, Azure, Google,etc.).
Internal HPC services
Eejit
Eejit is an HPC from the Earth Sciences (AW) and Physical Geography (FG) departments, and available to all researchers in the Geosciences faculty, with priority given to computations. This is a cluster of several machines running Linux, and computation is scheduled using Slurm. You can contact Theo van Zessen for access to Eejit.
Copernicus
This is a single machine for researchers in the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development to run computations on Windows virtual machines. The machine has two Nvidia graphics cards that can be used for AI/ML purposes, or for GPU computing. Sustainable Development department researchers can request access through Sandra van der Linden.
Velocity
Velocity is the computational facility operating on Linux for the department of Physical Geography. It is the successor of several ‘older’ servers Speedy, Fleet, Hyper and Sonic which will be (partly) phased out in the coming year. Velocity has a limited capacity of storage space on the facility itself, so after performing the computations, simulations, modelling or other processing activities, all used data have to be transferred to other storage solutions. You can contact Oliver Schmitz for an account.
External HPC solutions
SURF HPC/HTC services
SURF (Samenwerkende Universitaire RekenFaciliteiten) is the ICT collective of Dutch higher education institutions, provides various computing facilities and services to researchers in the Netherlands, particularly in the field of higher education and research. SURF provides several computing services to researchers which are designed to serve different computational needs:
The main computing resources from SURF are Snellius and Research Cloud. Snellius is the national supercomputer for large tasks, and Research Cloud is a service for running smaller jobs in a local or commercial cloud environment. There are credits available for UU researchers to use SURF computing services that cover the costs of the CPU-Time partly or fully. To get more information, and tailored advice, about SURF HPC/HTC services and how to get access to them, you can contact the Research Engineering Team.
Servers
OpenShift
UU ITS has deployed a container hosting platform called OpenShift. OpenShift is an implementation of Kubernetes developed by RedHat. If you need server for software deployment, hosting a website for your research, or setting up an interactive environment such as JupyterHub and customized RStudio server, this is the solution for you.
The Geo Data Team can help with deploying software on the OpenShift platform:
- Finding existing containers for your software
- Help build containers for your software
- Create the necessary configurations and diagrams for deployment
Writing Code
GitHub
Utrecht University has a GitHub Organization that is available to all staff and students at Utrecht University, instructions for access can be found on the UU GitHub Page: Utrecht University
With the University’s organisation account, you get a few extra perks:
- Private, Internal, or Public repositories
- Contributors roles and permissions control
- Extra storage for an UU repository
- Access to GitHub CoPilot
- GitHub Actions for building containers and packages
GitLab
There is a Geosciences GitLab environment, however we do not know who runs it, if you know who oversees the system please let us know by sending us an email datateam.geo@uu.nl
Technical Expertise Network
The Geo Data Team has created a TeamSite to discuss computing called the Technical Expertise Network (TEN).
Learn more about the TEN Join the TEN