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

In the Data Exploitation Methods (DEM) department we are conducting research in the Helmholtz Engineering Digital Futures programme, and develop software for the topics

• metadata for research data
• efficient research data management
• data analysis

within the application fields and areas

• Materials science
• Digital humanities
• National Research Data Infrastructure
• Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration Platform

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.
 

The SCC-IOR department operates the KIT's SAP system landscape. In addition to basic technical administration, SCC-IOR is also responsible for application support, i.e. troubleshooting and implementing new requirements through customizing or in-house developments in the systems. SCC-IOR is also responsible for user and role administration for the SAP systems.

The SAP system landscape at KIT comprises SAP ERP with the modules for accounting (FI/CO/PSM), logistics (MM/SD), human resources (HCM) and the infrastructure in the broader sense (PM/PP/PS), the user portal (UP) and SAP BW for comprehensive reporting. Furthermore, add-ons are operated to support various administrative processes (e.g. for digital invoice processing) as well as interfaces to non-SAP systems.

SCC-IOR works closely with the service units responsible for the SAP modules (e.g. FIMA, EVM, PSE, FM).

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.

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.

The Scientific Computing & Mathematics department links the activities of the Simulation and Data Life Cycle Labs (SDLs), the Computational Science and Mathematical Methods (CSMM) and the Fixed-Point Methods for Numerics at Exascale (FiNE) research group, as well as the HPC outreach projects Simulated Worlds and CAMMP. Here you can find the calls for master and bachelor theses.

SCS - Scientific Computing & Simulation

The Department of Scientific Computing and Simulation (SCS) provides the scientists at KIT with a variety of infrastructures and services relating to High Performance Computing (HPC). These task is considered as an integrated service that takes into account all aspects of scientific computing and the use of technical scientific applications. The service spectrum ranges from the operation of various high performance computing and high performance file systems via the provision of comprehensive basic software, including compilers, libraries, debuggers and batch systems, up to a broad range of application software for a variety of technical and scientific areas as well as the application-specific user support and training.

The High-Performance Computer Karlsruhe (HoreKa) operated by SCS is a tier-2 class system nationally available for research projects. In addition, SCS operates the bwUniCluster 2.0 for all universities of Baden-Württemberg in the context of the bwHPC concept.

With the Large Scale Data Facility (LSDF) and the WLCG Tier1 center GridKa, the Scientific Data Management (SDM) department develops and operates data infrastructures for the storage, archiving, and processing of large, scientific data sets, e.g., from elementary particle physics, astroparticle physics, and biology, as well as the synchrotron radiation source KARA.

The SDM department works within the framework of the National Research Data Infrastructure(NFDI) in the cosortia. NFDI4Ing NFDI4ChemandPUNCH4NFDIon new concepts for the storage and processing of research data from the respective communities.

In addition, the department operates backup and archiving services for KIT and for universities and colleges in the state of Baden-Württemberg (bwDataArchive).