Academic Supercomputing in Europe

Belgium

Statistics

Population: 10.3 million
GDP/capita: €25,200

Policy

The Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (formarly named Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs) is the agency also responsible for the financing, the operation and the innovation of the Belgian federal academic network. A Policy Board advises on the medium and long-range development of this network and on other aspects of its operation and organisation.

http://www.belspo.be/

Supercomputing facilities for the academia

• Cenaero: Beowulf cluster (176 Xeon/3060), SGI Altix 3700/28
• KULeuven: Beowulf cluster (272 Opteron/2400), IBM pSeries 630/8, IBM SP Power3/28
• Space Pole: SGI Altix 3700/56
• UA: Sun Cluster (512 Opteron/2400)
• UCL: Compaq AlphaServer/44, Compaq cluster/83, Beowulf cluster (32 PIII/933 + 16 P4/2400), Beowulf cluster (24 PIII/1400)
• University of Liège: SGI Origin 3800/60
• VUB/ULB: Compaq AlphaServer/28

National academic network

BELNET - the Belgian federal academic network -connects universities and research institutes at speeds of 155 Mbps to 2.5 Gbps. It has 15 nodes interconnected at 2.5 Gbps. BELNET has a 2.5 Gbps link to GÉANT. The budget in 2004 is €10 million.

http://www.belnet.be/

National GRIDs

The BELNET grid initiative (BEgrid) started in February 2003. Equipment of 6 groups from 5 universities (KULeuven, University of Antwerp, University of Ghent, ULB and VUB) has since then been connected to BEgrid.  BELNET has decided to support BEgrid till end 2007.
In April 2004 the Flemish Government granted k€ 717 to 5 institutes (KULeuven, University of Antwerp, University of Ghent, VUB and the Flanders Marine Institute) for a pilot grid infrastructure to be incorporated in BEgrid.

http://www.begrid.be/

List of abbreviations

• BELNET Belgian Research Network
• Cenaero Centre of excellence in aeronautical research, Gosselies
• KULeuven Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
UA Universiteit Antwerpen
• UCL Université Catholique de Louvain
• VUB/ULB Vrije Universiteit Brussel/ Université Libre de Bruxelles

Contacts and Addresses

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