HPC Resource Centre of VUB#
Message of the Day
19/06/2025 - Update of HPC portal applications
We have updated the JupyterLab, RStudio and MATLAB applications in VUB’s OnDemand portal with newer versions of their software environments and a simplified form that should make the default settings of these applications more useful.
Quick Reference Documentation#
The quick reference documentation offers structured and concise information for the day-to-day use of the HPC services at VUB. It focuses on our tier-2 cluster Hydra and covers all levels of expertise, from the VSC account creation to software optimization tips. Our documentation centre is also a point of entry to the extensive documentation available on the VSC documentation website.
Recent News#
20/06 - Hydra Overview 2024
In the year 2024 a lot of time was spent on the tender processes to procure the next VSC Tier-1 supercomputer hosted by VUB. Nevertheless our Tier-2 HPC cluster Hydra did undergo several key changes. It’s time for some statistics on the usage of the infrastructure on 2024.
19/06 - Update of HPC portal applications
We have updated the JupyterLab, RStudio and MATLAB applications in VUB’s OnDemand portal with newer versions of their software environments and a simplified form that should make the default settings of these applications more useful.
28/05 - New compute nodes added to Hydra
As of today, the four new high-memory nodes are now available as well. They have been added to both the zen5_himem and zen5_mpi partitions (but jobs that need a lot of memory will get priority on the high-memory nodes).
09/04 - VUB Firewall upgrade on 10 April 2025
The update has been postponed to April 14 between 08:00 and 10:00.
17/03 - Minor system upgrade of Hydra
On Friday, March 21, at 06:00 CET we will carry out a minor system upgrade of the login nodes. During this upgrade, Hydra will be unavailable to users for approximately 30 minutes. All user sessions on the login nodes will be disconnected, but running jobs will not be impacted.
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 Hydra Overview 2023 show 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.