RONCC Service Catalogue
Infrastructure
The most important operational infrastructure of the Romanian HPC Competence Centre (RoNCC) is the ICIPRO platform, hosted by the National Institute for Research & Development in Informatics (ICI Bucharest).
Financed via the Sectoral Operational Program Increase of Economic Competitiveness, “Structural Instruments / SMIS 48594”, ICIPRO represents the first consistent initiative related to Cloud Computing for public administration, academia and SMEs in Romania.
ICIPRO computing resources lead to the avoidance of acquiring oversized infrastructures for services that actually end up having limited use;
ICIPRO combines the benefits of the public cloud (on-demand, self-service, scalability), with those usually associated with on-premise environments (governance, predictability, control) and is presented mainly as an infrastructure service - IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service).
One key advantage of using the IaaS infrastructure is the flexibility of resource management. Each tenant can create, delete or modify their own virtual machines/resources, according to their current needs, and the provisioning of these resources is done quickly, from an intuitive web interface.
Among the advantages of using the ICIPRO infrastructure we would like to mention:
- Due to its integrated monitoring capabilities, the ICIPRO platform can objectively indicate how often a public service is used.
- The technical solution components come from trustworthy large-scale manufacturers, able to consistently support not only the implementation of such components in Romania, but also their maintenance after commissioning.
- It has a constant computing power of approximately 44 Tflops, with 2240 X86 architecture cores, 432.5 TB usable storage, and 10 Gb connections,
- The ICIPRO infrastructure has adapted to the heterogenous requirements of its users, such as the need to solve large computational tasks.
- A special service template has been created for different HPC models: Data Analytics, MPI (Numerical solvers/scientific simulations), parametric sweep (batch).
- ICIPRO infrastructure hosts: the Training Centre(laboratory sessions), projects developed within the institute.
The ICIPRO computational resources can be used by several categories of beneficiaries, including:
- Academic researchers, who can apply for computational resources via ICIPRO subscriptions;
- State authority users, who can access additional computational resources via the ICIPRO project;
- SMEs and start-ups, who can lease computational cycles via commercial contracts for business development;
- Its resources can also be used for sandbox programs meant for testing new technologies within “in vitro” projects.
Training
The Training Center (CPFPC) is a structure within ICI Bucharest that provides professional training services, under the conditions provided by law. It supports the professional evolution, in the context of the last years of the macroeconomic and social development.
The training team consists of specialists with rich academic and research experience in information sciences.
The mission of the Center is to promote innovation, to ensure the optimal framework for personal and professional development, by training and improving skills specific to the IT&C field, skills adapted to the requirements of a competitive market.
ICI has developed its own training platform, ICI Learning (https://learning.ici.ro/) , which supports the development of online courses, as a support platform for these activities, even making it possible to view course materials online.
The courses are recommended for both beginners and advanced. Intensive courses are based on a lot of practice, supported by a solid theoretical component. The students will learn all the theoretical notions and practical skills that an employer pursues, and the certification obtained will allow them to get a job.
The portfolio of training programs is as follows: Web Designer, Programmer, Information Security Manager GDPR Responsible, Project manager, etc. The courses are recognized by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labor in Romania. In the near future we plan to add to the portfolio HPC/HPDA/AI training courses.
Technology Transfer
ICI Technology Transfer Center (ICICTT) has the mission:
- to promote and increase the visibility of the results of innovation in research and development of ICI Bucharest;
- to collaborate in the field of IT&C with private sector stakeholders (SMEs), national and international research and development institutes, the governmental sector, scientific communities in academia, start-up accelerators, etc.
General objectives:
- integration in the economic circuit of the products / processes resulting from the research-development-innovation activity of our organisation;
- development of new collaborations / partnerships between ICI Bucharest and other entities in the field of ICT (SMEs, universities, research centers and institutes, technology transfer entities, etc.)
- increasing the number of patented products and technologies of ICI Bucharest.
- consultancy services and technology transfer;
- dissemination and promotion of research and innovation results (between for example: government institutions and industry, the scientific community and the business environment, etc., in the form of workshops and webinars, inventions / patents, specialized journals and online.)
Technical Competences
The technical competences of RONCC include :
- Artificial Intelligence/Machine learning
- Image processing and analysis, computer vision;
- Advanced data analytics (Hadoop/Spark)
- Parallel and distributed computing
- Cloud computing
- Cluster administration
- Software development
- Cybersecurity
Awareness Creation
Dissemination activities:
- Social media channels: Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter
- Promotional movies
- Participation in events, organization of events
- RONCC website: newsletter, news section
What we disseminate:
- Info related to EU HPC infrastructure developments
- EuroHPC JU developments
- Info about training events at national and EU level
- EU innovation initiatives – information on EU funding programs for HPC (FF4EuroHPC, Prace, etc)
- Info related to Romanian infrastructure developments
- RONCC center activities – what we do and the services we provide
- RONCC and external events
- HPC benefits for SMEs, administration and academia
- Publications on HPC/HPDA/AI
- Special posts about the History of HPC (#HPCHistory)
- Special posts about HPC inspired projects/activities/areas that HPC can/could improve
Support for application to funding initiatives
RONCC provides guidance and support for application to funding programs such as:
- FF4EUROHPC Open Call for SMEs
- PRACE CALLS FOR PROPOSALS
- Euro HPC JU