LIT specialists set up computing cluster at NOSU

News, 17 February 2020

Last week, a computing cluster for data collection, storage and processing was set up at the Faculty of Physics and Technology of the K. L. Khetagurov North Ossetian State University (NOSU). The cluster aims to solve complex tasks of theoretical and experimental research, including those of the NICA mega-science project. In addition, training will be conducted at the cluster so that NOSU students will learn how to work at the most advanced computing architectures.

Specialists of the Laboratory of Information Technologies JINR Nikolay Kutovsky, Roman Semenov and Andrey Nechaevsky (from left to right in the photo) who specially came to North Ossetia carried out the initial set up of the cluster and connected it to the network equipment. In the nearest future, the cluster will be included in the computing network and will possibly be a part of the JINR computing infrastructure.

“When the NICA collider is launched, there will be an enormous amount of data to process, store and make available to scientists around the world. Moreover, this cluster, which is supposed to be included in the computing network to solve the tasks of modern physics, may become a part of the infrastructure of the Institute. It will allow speeding up the process of result acquisition,” LIT Leading Programmer Andrey Nechaevsky said to the newspaper “Severnaya Osetia”. “We connected the cluster to the network equipment, installed the operating system so that to set up necessary services for training students in the future. The initial configuration may be adjusted depending on the tasks set for the University staff and on how JINR will use this set of services. For example, they can exchange data for solving modern physical and mathematical tasks.”

“We have been trying to join the activities of leading scientific projects for two years. As a result of it, the JINR Information Centre was opened and a huge amount of work has been already done. The next stage refers to the digital union,” Dean of the NOSU Physics and Technology Faculty Inga Tvauri explained that computing equipment with a cost of about 2 million rubles was purchased for funds of the mega-grant won by the University in 2019. “Getting of computing equipment is a significant event not only for students and scientists of the Physics and Technology Faculty or other faculties of the University but for the scientific community of the whole North Caucasus Federal District at large. After all, we get access to the data stored at the Institute and the Member States through this cluster, and thus we can participate in computing and experiments conducted there to the full extent.




It should be reminded that JINR and the North Ossetian State University have been actively developing cooperation since 2018. Thus, on 12 October 2018, a festive opening ceremony of the first JINR Information Centre was held at NOSU. The Centre is aimed to coordinate the cooperation of JINR with regions in the south of Russia, to popularize activities and achievements of the Institute thus attracting the youth to science, starting from the school stage of education. In May 2019, an IT School for young scientists “Modern IT technologies for solving scientific challenges” took place at NOSU organized jointly by JINR and NOSU.

Materials of the newspaper “Severnaya Osetia”
were used to prepare the article