Dear reader,
Computer simulation and data analysis accelerate research enormously and promote knowledge gain. We are very pleased that SCC is one of the first institutions in Europe to put the innovative NVIDIA DGX A100 systems (front page) into operation to enable innovative AI research. However, the most modern hardware would be worthless without software. Therefore it is ever more important to shine the light on research software engineering (RSE) and its connection with open source software. On page 60 you may read how a sustainable peer review workflow, based on established processes in open source software projects, can contribute to this.
Fast pace and agility are constant companions of a modern scientific data center. Increasingly automated processes are needed to provide platforms and infrastructures for projects and research groups and deliver them quickly and reliably. On page 28 you can read how SCC using Business Process Automation, greatly reduced the effort to administer and document the processes at SCC for allocation and handling of groupware resources.
Like in all our lives, the Corona pandemic also impacted life and work at KIT. Thanks to the concerted effort of SCC experts and many other organisational units of KIT, new IT-based tools and services for remote collaboration in research and online teaching were deployed and integrated with the KIT infrastructure in a very short time. Read more on this topic in the Corona special section (p. 4 – 12). We would like to take this opportunity to thank all contributors for their commitment and successful cooperation to secure the uninterrupted functioning of KIT during the Corona measures.
Martin Frank, Bernhard Neumair, Martin Nußbaumer, Achim Streit