VUB Scientific Data & Compute#
Message of the Day
30/04/2026 - VSC Link briefly down on 6 May
Due to a scheduled migration of the VSC link, connectivity between VUB-HPC and other VSC hubs will be temporarily suspended on 6 May between 9:00 and 10:00. This should not take longer than a few minutes. Jobs running on your home institution clusters are unaffected. Jobs running on remote VSC clusters will also continue to run, unless they require access to $VSC_DATA or $VSC_HOME.
Quick Reference Guide#
This quick reference guide offers structured, concise information for the daily use of our Tier-2 HPC clusters and Pixiu, our Research Data storage platform. The compute section covers best practices for using the HPC clusters, serving all levels of expertise, from VSC account creation to software optimization tips. It also acts as an entry point to the comprehensive resources available on the VSC documentation website.
Recent News#
30/04 - VSC Link briefly down on 6 May
Due to a scheduled migration of the VSC link, connectivity between VUB-HPC and other VSC hubs will be temporarily suspended on 6 May between 9:00 and 10:00. This should not take longer than a few minutes. Jobs running on your home institution clusters are unaffected. Jobs running on remote VSC clusters will also continue to run, unless they require access to $VSC_DATA or $VSC_HOME.
29/04 - Hydra and Sofia security shutdown
Access to the HPC clusters of VUB (Hydra, Anansi) and the VSC Tier-1 cluster Sofia is closed for security reasons until further notice.
28/04 - VUB-HPC briefly offline on 4 May
Due to a scheduled network maintenance, the VUB-HPC clusters will be temporarily inaccessible on 4 May between 9:00 and 10:00. This should not take longer than a few minutes. Users will be unable to access the clusters during the migration. Running jobs will continue to run, provided they do not require external internet access.
17/04 - VSC Accountpage problems
10:30 The accountpage issue has been fixed. All users should be able to access our services normally again.
27/03 - LiteLLM python package compromised
On March 24, 2026, the popular LiteLLM python package was compromised by a supply chain attack. If you are using LiteLLM in any form, please take immediate action and check if any of the compromised versions (v1.82.7 or v1.82.8) are installed. See the LiteLLM blog post on the incident for all the details on how to check if you are affected and what to do if that’s the case: https://docs.litellm.ai/blog/security-update-march-2026.
Latest Events#
Hydra Surveys and Stats#
Once a year we do a review of the usage of the cluster in the previous year. We carry out a user survey to gather feedback about your experience in our HPC clusters and collect usage data to analyse user activity on the clusters themselves.
The questions of the survey cover the full cycle of cluster usage, from getting access to the specific infrastructure needs of experienced users. The goal is to identify the weak and strong points in our scientific computing services as guidance for improvement in the future.
Our Overview for 2025 shows a very good satisfaction level of our users with the services provided by the SDC team. It also sheds light on some challenges and interesting trends for the future of the cluster.
All published reviews can be found in the survey list.