Workshop: Cloud services for HPC users
A twinning workshop was organized on April 19th, 2022 with the aim of exchanging best practices and approaches to provide HPC cloud services to users from academia and industry. The workshop took place in Smolenice, Slovakia.
eINFRA and experience from the Czech Republic
Experts from CESNETwere invited to share their experiences with both NCCs in this area. CESNET is an association of universities of the Czech Republic and the Czech Academy of Sciences. It operates and develops the national e-infrastructure for science, research and education which encompasses a computer network, computational grids, data storage and collaborative environment. During the workshop, representatives of the CESNET presented such topics as:
M. Ruda: Introduction, CESNET and Metacentrum: large-scale distributed computing infrastructure and services.
D. Antoš: CESNET and Metacentrum: operation and development of data storage as a part of the national infrastructure for science and research.
Cloud services as an (un)necessary part of the HPC provider portfolio – is it profitable?
Branislav Jansík from IT4Innovations and the head of the Czech competence center Tomáš Karásek presented the requirements of users for access to cloud services. It is the motivation, requirements and expectations of users, as well as the benefits and barriers from the point of view of the HPC service provider, have been the subject of a longer discussion. Participants also debated alternative platforms, "easy-access" services, microservice, HPC "market".
Both National Competence Centers plan to integrate HPC cloud services into their portfolios using the open-source platforms OpenNebula and OpenStack. CESNET representatives who have experience with both tools shared their benefits and technical support options.
The more general debate concerned in particular the issue of systematic and long-term support for the development and operation of HPC systems as a necessary component of the national research infrastructure.
Digital Twins of Society: HPC-Powered Simulations 25 Jun - Join us for a thought-provoking webinar exploring how artificial intelligence and multi-agent simulation technologies are helping researchers understand and predict complex societal dynamics. This session brings together leading experts in cultural cybernetics, cognitive modeling, and national-scale digital twin simulations.
Strengthening EuroCC ties: NCC Slovakia visits FCCN in Lisbon 24 Jun - On June 24th, representative of NCC Slovakia, Božidara Pellegrini, met with colleagues from NCC Portugal at the headquarters of FCCN – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia in Lisbon. 
Záznam z podujatia: Slovak Language in the Era of Large Language Models (with the Support of the Leonardo Supercomputer) 23 Jun - On June 11, 2025, a joint webinar on language modeling was held, organized by the National Competence Centres for HPC in Slovakia and Italy. The discussion focused on the challenges and solutions related to using large language models (LLMs) for less-resourced languages such as Slovak.