The majority of modern business processes are IT or softwarebased. Different software systems are often used for this purpose, thus forming a heterogeneous IT landscape. The automation of business processes therefore requires the integration of these systems and applications.

At KIT, this system integration is a particularly important strategic goal. It requires cooperative solution approaches of all parties involved in the business processes. The SCC, as Information Technology Center of KIT, especially the Applications, Middleware, and IT Architecture (AMA) Department, designs such integrated IT solutions and services and operates them in a future-proof manner.

Particularly with regard to the variety of service providers and consumers existing at KIT, IT components and solutions that provide a KIT solution through interaction play an important role. The facets of integration considered in AMA include people, portals, processes, and providers of different technologies and procedures.

CIS provides a secure and well-monitored groupware environment based on Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint. While Exchange, in addition to providing email services, focusses on mobile communication and calendar applications, SharePoint enables KIT institutions to use web-based team portals for the exchange of all kinds of information.

In consultation with the IT officers of KIT institutions, CIS also provides basic Windows applications. For this modern methods of operating system and software deployment, such as Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) and Microsoft AppV, are utilised.

Using these techniques, the SCC computing pools are prepared for the operation of courses. The software is provided in consultation with the instructors.

The department Data Analytics, Access and Applications (D3A) deals with challenges that must be solved for the efficient use of data-intensive applications.

The research and development activities of the department cover several topics:

• Federated access methods and policies (authentication, authorization) for access to distributed storage and computing services
• Development and practical use of scalable tools for data analytics and machine learning
• Joint research and development with domain scientists, especially climate and environmental scientists in the field of data-intensive applications.
• Contributions to the development of the European Open Science Cloud and the integration of communities within the framework of several EU projects

The Data Exploitation Methods (DEM) department has been a part of SCC since 2018. Previously located at the Institute for Process Data Processing and Electronics (IPE), the connection to the SCC is a consequence of its proximity to the Helmholtz Engineering Digital Futures programme. The DEM department is a competent partner for research data management and data analysis with its expertise in dealing with heterogeneous data volumes.
 
DEM offers doctorates, student theses and HiWi positions for many exciting research topics (see jobs and theses at DEM).

The SCC's internal and external business processes are handled by department Finance and Administration (FuA), headed by Sabine Düsenberg, through the three pillars of financial management, personnel administration and order processing. The department's tasks include procurement and invoice processing, budget planning and financial management, personnel administration and occupational safety measures. The department therefore has far-reaching cross-sectional functions.

The financial management tasks include, in particular, budget and project controlling of SCC’s large-scale research and university tasks as well as the National Supercomputing Center NHR, the control of personnel deployment planning and the recording of personnel days as well as financial report management.

The Personnel Administration team supports SCC employees and research assistants in all personnel processes such as new hires, contract extensions and changes, advises employees and managers on personnel management issues, manages the personnel budget and is involved in internal KIT projects.

The order processing team initiates all SCC procurement processes, tracks incoming goods and implements invoice processing, in addition to the associated inventory and deinventory processes. Complex administration tasks as part of integrated financial planning are tracked, as is the documentation of thousands of bookings every year, which links them closely with financial and NHR controlling as well as personnel administration. The team is also responsible for the external and internal billing of SCC services. The team will also process the applications for business travel expenses financed by the university tasks, until the changeover to the TMSK’s digital process has been completed comprehensively. 

As part of the extended administrative tasks, the department also ensures occupational safety by organizing annual occupational safety briefings and supports first responders, fire protection and evacuation assistants in their service for the organizational unit.
 

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The operation and development of the SAP landscape of KIT are among the fundamental tasks of the SCC-IOR department. The range of applications supported extends from financial accounting and controlling, through human resources, materials management and sales, to technical applications such as maintenance and production. IOR also operates more specialized applications, such as the Learning Solution as course and training software, as well as budget management, which is typical for public-sector companies. Independent applications for self-service procurement (SAP SRM) and a comprehensive reporting system (SAP BW) round off the portfolio.

In addition, many interfaces to NON-SAP systems are maintained in order to provide  consistent and valid data in these systems. Almost all SAP systems used are operated as a three-tier landscape and have the levels of development, quality assurance and production.

In the event of errors in the applications, IOR ensures rapid error correction after analysis. At regular intervals, the necessary software updates are carried out at the operational and application levels. IOR maintains many in-house developments within the SAP system to better support business processes at KIT. SCC-IOR works closely with the relevant departments to develop the necessary business concepts. In addition, SCC-IOR conducts training courses and provides first-level support to users in the event of operating problems with the software.

Further tasks of IOR include the operation of the time recording terminals and of the document management system integrated in SAP.

The university administration of the KIT requires numerous IT-supported processes around study and teaching. The department "Information Systems Studies and Teaching" (ISL) supports these processes as well as the students and teachers with several IT systems centrally provided at the SCC. The core tasks of ISL include ensuring the trouble-free operation of these systems, consulting and support in the event of technical issues as well as the continuous expansion of IT systems through extensions and in-house developments. ISL works closely together with the central and decentralised organisational institutions directly involved in study and teaching.

The campus management systems CAS Campus and HIS are used for the administration of the complete life cycle of a student at the KIT. These systems offer IT support for many areas of activity, such as application and admission management, event and examination management as well as degree programme and student management. The Campus Management System "CAS Campus" is currently being introduced step by step at KIT in cooperation with the software manufacturer and replaces the previous system HIS (University Information System). As a central plattform for students, ISL develops and operates the Campus Management Portal for Students.

To support teaching, ISL provides the central e-learning system ILIAS, which offers various possibilities for the design and implementation of web-based teaching and learning, but also for communication and collaboration among ILIAS users. With the basic settings of ILIAS and with little initial effort, course rooms can be created (as a counterpart to the events recorded in Campus Management) in which, for example, materials accompanying lectures can be made available to course participants. ILIAS can also be used to create and manage other types of objects: Files, folders, user groups, photos, videos, appointments, meetings, wikis, forums, web feeds, tests, chat rooms, link collections, exercises, surveys and much more, for the construction of complex and versatile e-learning structures.

Employees and students at KIT expect a functioning and secure IT working environment as well as transparent and orderly service processes for operation and support of applications and systems. ICSM supports the provision of secure and reliable IT services with IT security and service management. Together with the operations teams, the ICSM department continuously supports and improves the IT services of the entire SCC, among other things, by using "ITIL Service Management Best Practices". In this context, the SCC's service desk is the central point of contact and coordination for requests related to these services.

By means of a process-oriented client management system, ICSM centrally manages the ed-user devices for administrative organizational units of KIT; for institutes, ICSM provides further operating models.

Together with our partners in the organizational units, we design these IT processes in a cooperative way. The goal is to align the quality of IT services with the needs of the users and the available resources.

ICSM plans, tests and implements central IT security services at KIT. Together with the Information Security Officer (ISB), we develop an IT security strategy tailored for KIT. The IT security team assesses IT components, technologies, and procedures for use at KIT.

The group's research interests broadly lie at the intersection of machine learning and traditional statistical methods. Further information can be found on the research page of Methods for Big Data.

Access to the network is one of the main prerequisites for admission to information and communication today. A stable, functional and convenient network infrastructure is the basis for effective work of scientists, staff, students and external and internal users. The department NET headed by Klara Mall supplies the entire KIT with IP connectivity, runs the entire network infrastructure with active components such as routers and switches and the passive components like copper and fiber cabling. Beside the wired network NET is providing the wireless network of KIT and offers users a high degree of mobility. For access from the Internet or from home via DSL appropriate remote access solutions are offered. In addition, many network-related services such as DNS, NTP, DHCP, RADIUS, etc. are offered. Another focus of the department are telecommunication services. NET provides a multi-casting and streaming capable network infrastructure, established integrated value-added services for the future integration of voice and data services by establishing class of service in the network. This allows for application dependent classification of traffic as background, best effort, video, voice and prioritized management. The round-the-clock operation of the department will provide 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the technical readiness and redundancy.