How to Get Access?
Access
In order to use the infrastructure of the VSC, you need a VSC-userid, also called a VSC account. This account is linked to a an account at one of the Flemish university associations. The account gives you access to the infrastructure, though only with a limited compute time allocation on some of the Tier-2 systems. More details can be found in the user portal.
Who can get a VSC account?
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Academic research in Flanders.
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Researchers at the Flemish university associations.
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Master students in the framework of their master thesis
Use in courses at the University of Leuven and Hasselt University: Lecturers can also use the local Tier-2 infrastructure in the context of some courses It is important that the application is submitted on time, at least two weeks before the start of the computer sessions.
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Researchers from strategic research centers (imec, VIB, VITO, Flanders Make) university hospitals and research institutes under the direction or supervision of a university, special university institutes. The application is made through your host university.
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Researchers at other Flemish public (research) institutions.
Tier-1 compute time can be obtained by project submissions. Specific details about these procedures can be found on the "Account request" page in the user portal.
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The VSC infrastructure can also be used by industry and non-Flemish research institutes.
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Industry, Businesses
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non-Flemish public (research) knowledge institutions
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not-for-profit organizations
New users can apply for up to €5,000 in free credits for Tier-1 CPU and GPU resources, available for a 4-month period. These credits are intended for proof-of-concept and to validate the suitability of the infrastructure for a given application. Users can also benefit from the free support provided by our HPC staff.
After the exploratory period, a three-party legal agreement involving the Tier-1 Administrative Coordinator and the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) as the legal entity of the VSC is required. Billing will be based on the computing time used, and the storage capacity reserved, with rates as follows:
(*) Users at federal public (research) institutions may also apply for project-based access to the Tier-1 system. The available free compute time for this category is limited to 10% per cut-off period.
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These prices include the university overhead and basic support from the Tier-1 support staff, but no advanced level support by specialised staff.
For more information, you can contact our industry account manager (FWO).
It is also possible to gain access to the Tier-2 infrastructure within the VSC. Within the Tier-2 infrastructure, there are also clusters tailored to special applications such as small clusters with GPU or Xeon Phi boards, a large shared memory machine or a cluster for Hadoop applications.
For more information and specific arrangements please contact the coordinator of the institution which operates the infrastructure. In this case you only need an agreement with this institution without involvement of the FWO.
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