VUB Scientific Data & Compute#
Message of the Day
27/03/2026 - 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.
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#
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.
24/03 - Improved way to launch interactive jobs
We’ve changed the recommended way to launch an interactive job on a compute node from the terminal interface. Previously, this was done using
srun --pty bash -l. We now recommend usingsalloc, which makes it possible to launch parallel MPI jobs withsrunormpirunfrom within the interactive session. All related documentation has been updated accordingly, see the section on Interactive jobs for details.18/03 - VSC Web Authentication Outage
10:00 The authentication to VSC web services has been restored. All users from VUB and UZB can access our services normally.
17/03 - VUB VSC single sign-on server upgrade
The upgrade is postponed to 23 March.
27/02 - Update of the HPC portal
We have updated the VUB OnDemand portal by installing several new apps, upgrading to Open OnDemand 4.1 and making a slight change to the job submission forms.
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 2024 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.