High Performance Computing & Visualization
High Performance Networking
ICT Services
Marketing & Sales

High Performance Computing & Visualization

SARA's department High Performance Computing & Visualization (HPCV) focuses on making high performance computational environments accessible and usable to the scientific community, government and industry. The department also has elaborate experience with visualization and virtual reality.

High Performance Computing is the technology that is used to solve scientific problems that are very compute-intensive and/or require processing of huge amounts of data rapidly. SARA has practical experience in the fields of optimization and parallelization of computer programs, the use of Grid technology, Storage Area Network technology and building Linux clusters.

Since 1985, SARA is responsible for housing of the national supercomputer service. Under the authority of the Netherlands National Computing Facilities Foundation (NCF), SARA manages the National Supercomputer Huygens. Via NCF Dutch researchers can use computing capacity on these systems. SARA also manages the National Compute Cluster.

For many researchers, Visualization is an important aid to get insight in complex and abstract scientific information. SARA supports researchers with advanced visualization techniques and facilities. The most eye-catching visualization facility is the CAVE™, a room of 4x4x3 meter in which users can explore and analyze their data three-dimensionally.

The department is specialized in the system management of large supercomputers and Linux clusters, as well as in the professional support of our customers. In addition the department offers safe and reliable storage facilities and solutions, parallelization and Grid technology. The diversity of backgrounds of the visualization specialists, with graduations in computer science, physics and industrial design, makes it possible to study problems from a variety of angles. Besides a broad and deep knowledge on software development and systems configuration, the department has extensive expertise on the efficient and effective use of visualization.