ZIH-Info No. 186, February 2025
Table of contents
Editor: Jacqueline Papperitz
New software for data encryption
Boxcryptor is available until March 31, 2025 as a solution for encrypting data stored on central TUD storage devices such as datashare, home and group drives. As an alternative, Cryptomator can now be used, which can be obtained as a freely available offer via https://cryptomator.org. If several users need to access the identical encrypted storage space, it is advisable to use the paid software version “Cryptomator Hub”. The licenses for this must be financed by the organizational units. The migration of the encrypted data is carried out by the users themselves. Those affected were already informed in December 2024. Instructions for installing and switching from Boxcryptor to Cryptomator: https://faq.tickets.tu-dresden.de/s/Keyword=Cryptomator. (Contact: TUD-CERT, cert@tu-dresden.de)
New feature in the ticket system
In the TUD ticket system (znuny), which is used by the Service Center Studies, the study offices, the IT admins in the departments and the CIDS including the Service Desk, among others, inquiries from employees and students on IT and administrative topics are recorded and processed in a structured manner. Agents have the option of sorting the view of their tickets according to requests in the area of responsibility in so-called queues or according to the status of the requests. These are designed so that all responsible agents in a group can see all tickets. Some of the agents specialize in certain topics or services that could previously only be displayed using search templates in individual views. The reason for this was that the "affected service" was documented in a field that does not offer any additional functionality on the system side. Since the end of January 2025, services have been classified by default with the "Services" function, which allows agents to display their tickets in an additional automatically available view. This allows the structure of the processes to be simplified. The SCD and ZIH have implemented this simplification directly by activating the service function and have been able to significantly reduce the number of their queues. Services can be subscribed to like queues. (Contact: )
TUD at the ISC Student Cluster Competition 2025
Together with Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, TUD is participating in the virtual track of this year's ISC Student Cluster Competition. The ISC is a leading conference for high-performance computing. The competition teams are given the task of executing various applications on given clusters and optimizing the runtime. Together, the students will tackle the various tasks and gain a deep understanding of hardware, clusters and applications with the help of the knowledge imparted in class and the tools developed at the universities. The announcement of the placements will take place on June 12, 2025 (Contact: Maximilian Sander)
Completion of the DARWIN project
After three and a half years, the DARWIN joint project coordinated by Rolls-Royce Germany will come to an end in December 2024. As part of the BMWK aviation research program, the project brought together partners from academic research and industry. The aim was to further develop, apply and validate innovative digital simulation and design processes as well as AI methods to improve the interdisciplinary understanding of engine systems. The ZIH was involved in the further development of the underlying CFD code Hydra for the high-precision simulation of engine systems on high-performance computing systems and in the application and further development of AI and machine learning methods to accelerate the design processes. As part of DARWIN, massively parallel, high-precision simulations of aircraft engines were carried out, whose runtime behavior was recorded with the performance analysis framework Score-P and provided with the required metadata. Furthermore, substitute models were developed for the prediction of flow fields of an industrially relevant size. For this purpose, a graph-based model was trained on partitioned flow fields and then integrated into the Fortran flow solver Hydra. The model can thus provide predictions directly at the runtime of the solver. This work reduced both critical I/O load peaks and runtime. (Contact: Maximilian Sander)
Euro-Par 2025 at the TU Dresden
As organizers of Euro-Par 2025 from 25 to 29 August 2025 at TU Dresden, the ZIH and the Faculty of Computer Science cordially invite submissions of high-quality and innovative research results as well as concepts for workshops and symposia. The 31st International European Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing (Euro-Par) is the leading European platform for the exchange of ideas and research results in this field - from theoretical foundations to practical applications, from small systems to the largest infrastructures. The conference offers a unique opportunity to connect with leading minds from academia and industry in an interdisciplinary and international environment, to network and to participate in highly interesting discussions on current trends and developments. Further information: https://2025.euro-par.org/.(Contact: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang E. Nagel)
Immerse yourself in //DataSpaces. at the APB
The interactive //DataSpaces exhibition of the CIDS in the Andreas-Pfitzmann-Bau offers a wide range of events until the end of February. In addition to the weekly lunchtime tours every Wednesday and the Thursday evening tours, on 5 February 2025, "Visualizing Computing. When Art Meets Science." - a dialogue event with keynote speeches from the worlds of art and science - invites visitors to engage in a lively exchange. The exhibition team is also offering a special program with interactive guided tours and a workshop especially for families during the Saxon winter vacations. The exhibition with more than 15 exciting exhibits is open to visitors of all ages to discover and try out. The finissage will take place on February 11. Celebrate the exhibition with us from 17:00 to 20:00 with a small snack and inspiring talks and discussions. Further information and dates: https://dataspaces.cids.tu-dresden.de/. (Contact: Monika Reich, ISL)
Love Data Week teaches data literacy
As part of the worldwide Love Data Week from February 10 to 14, 2025, events will be held around data and data management. The TUD and SLUB will once again be taking part with knowledge transfer and on-site events. In addition to the consultation hour of the Research Data Contact Point on research data management, where ZIH experts will also be available to answer questions, the Come2Data project team invites you to the SLUB Open Science Lab on February 14 from 10:00 to 15:00. In short presentations on FAIRness in machine learning, metadata catalogs and ontologies, data processing in research or GitHub-Zenodo integration and an interactive workshop introducing LIAScript, a Markdown-based tool for developing interactive open learning content, interested parties can refresh or expand their data management skills. Further information: https://tu-dresden.de/zih/news/love-data-week2025. (Contact: Dr. Franziska Korb-King)
Event dates
- 04.02.2025, 13:30-15:00: Archiving and publishing my research data according to good scientific practice – Lecture on when, how and where.
- 05.02.2025, 17:00-18:30: Visualizing Computing. When art meets science - Dialogue event //DataSpaces., Foyer APB
- 11.02.2025, 17:00-19:00: Finissage science exhibition //DataSpaces. Experience science., Foyer APB
- 12.02.2025, 13:30-15:00: Archiving and publication of research data with the TUD repository OPARA – Introduction and demonstration.
- 12.02.-13.02.2025, all day: Life@Lab 2-Horizons of AI Research in Higher Education, SLUB Open Science Lab
- 14.02.2025, 13:30-14:30: Open consultation hour on research data management – Love Data Week 2025, SLUB Open Science Lab
- 19.02.2025, 16:00-17:00: Creating data management plans for funding applications – How to best meet the requirements of the EU, DFG, BMBF and Co.
- Softphone consultation hour: 03.02., 10.02., 17.02., 24.02. and 03.03.2025 10:00-11:00 a.m. each day
- Open Q&A session for users of the NHR@TUD computing cluster: 03.02., 10.02., 24.02. and 03.03.2025 13:30-14:30 each day