Cooperations
Austrian Academic Computer Network (ACOnet)
ACOnet represents the network for science, research and education in Austria. It is operated at the University of Vienna by the Zentraler Informatikdienst, in co-operation with other Austrian universities since 1992.
ACOnet provides a nation-wide fibre optic backbone with high-performance access to international academic networks as well as to the internet, and excellent connectivity to the European and global science, research and education community via GÉANT.
At the time of writing, ACOnet connects more than 200 participants from all over Austria, such as universities and other institutions of higher education, students dormitories, regional school networks, libraries and museums, hospitals, federal ministries and municipal magistrates, etc.
ACOnet-CERT
Founded in 2003, ACOnet-CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) is operated by the IT security team at ZID.
The task of ACOnet-CERT is to
- coordinate and provide support in resolving security-related incidents in ACOnet and
- to generally promote IT security in ACOnet.
nic.at
nic.at GmbH assigns and manages Internet domains within the country domain for Austria.
This means that all domain registrations under ‘.at’ (or ‘co.at’ and ‘or.at’) are managed by nic.at GmbH in a corresponding registry database. This data must also be made available in a suitable manner to ‘the Internet’, its users and their programmes.
The necessary infrastructure for this, i.e. the registry service and associated servers, is operated by the ZID. The software required for a registry is also developed at the ZID. This is done in cooperation between nic.at GmbH and the ZID.
Vienna Internet eXchange (VIX)
The Vienna Internet eXchange (VIX) is a neutral, redundant, highly available high-performance Internet exchange point (IXP) that has been operated by the ZID since 1996.
It is a neutral infrastructure for
- science networks,
- Internet service providers,
- content and cloud providers, and
- content delivery networks
in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe. The VIX serves its participants for the exchange of national and international Internet traffic and for the optimisation of their traffic flows.
Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC)
The Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC) is a supercomputer for selected academic projects that have an extremely high demand for computing power. The VSC is a collaboration of:
- Vienna University of Technology
- University of Vienna
- University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna
- Graz University of Technology
- University of Innsbruck
MUSICA
MUSICA (Multi-Site Computer Austria) is Austria's next supercomputer with networked HPC systems at locations in Innsbruck, Linz and Vienna.
The VSC supercomputers are operated jointly by several universities, but so far at a central location and with online access for all participating institutions. The MUSICA computer hardware, on the other hand, is distributed across several locations – the resulting connection of high performance computing and cloud computing is an innovation of the MUSICA project.
MUSICA will also provide users with significantly more computing power: the fastest supercomputers in Austria to date, VSC-4 and VSC-5, have a combined performance of 5.01 petaflops (computing operations per second). The new HPC cluster will provide a computing power of around 40 petaflops, making it one of the most powerful systems in the world.
LEONARDO
The EuroHPC LEONARDO is one of the world's most powerful supercomputers. The Leonardo cluster offers a computing power of almost 250 petaflops and a storage capacity of over 100 petabytes. A share of the computing resources is reserved for users from Austria, who can apply for compute time for their projects via the AURELEO calls for proposals.
ASC Research Center
The ASC Research Center was established as part of a project in the framework of structural funds for the higher education area (Hochschulraumstrukturmittelprojekt). It offers a training programme that is targeted at using supercomputers and that supports users in optimising programs. The courses of the ASC Research Center are open to members of the partner universities and also – subject to availability – to external persons.
This project also supports doctoral candidates and postdocs in optimising and documenting highly relevant programs and making them available as open source software.
Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE)
PRACE is a supercomputing network connected via the ACOnet infrastructure for researchers and students in Austria as well as Austrian users from industry.
PHAIDRA
PHAIDRA is an acronym for Permanent Hosting, Archiving and Indexing of Digital Resources and Assets. It is a comprehensive university digital asset management system for the long-term securing of digital properties. The operation and development of PHAIDRA take place at the University of Vienna in cooperation between ZID and the Vienna University Library.
Many other educational institutions use PHAIDRA as well. The resulting network already comprises 21 partner institutions in five countries.
e-Infrastructures Austria
The e-Infrastructures Austria project was initiated in 2014 by the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy (BMWFW). The aim was to promote coordinated development and further enhancement of research data infrastructure throughout Austria. The ZID and the University Library of the University of Vienna were jointly responsible for the project management.
Since 2017, this project has been continued with the ZID`s participation as e-Infrastructures Austria Plus in order to support the continuous expansion of this infrastructure. Services and policies relating to research data are also taken into account.
Academic Moodle Cooperation (AMC)
The Academic Moodle Cooperation (AMC) is a cooperation of academic institutions to ensure
- long-term operation, maintenance, advancement and
- support of Moodle and its related services.
It was established in 2014 as a result of the Moodle development cooperation project executed by the University of Vienna and the Vienna University of Technology.
Members of the AMC are:
- University of Vienna
- Technical University of Vienna
- Karl Franzens University Graz
- Medical University Vienna
- University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna
Open Education Austria
As part of Open Education Austria, the ZID is working with
- the Centre for Teaching and Learning,
- the University Library and
- other universities and universities of applied sciences
to develop a national infrastructure for Open Educational Resources (OER). These are learning and teaching materials that can be used and distributed free of charge.
Open Education Austria supports university lecturers in designing and creating OER and is implementing an exemplary portal where open learning and teaching materials can be found.
Atlassian Community
The products of the manufacturer Atlassian are used by numerous Austrian universities. In September 2019, the Atlassian Community was launched on the initiative of the University of Vienna.
The Atlassian Community consists of educational institutions that are interested in Atlassian's product range or have already licensed Atlassian tools. Currently, 15 universities and universities of applied sciences are on board in the community.
The aim of the community is to facilitate inter-university exchange of experiences relating to Atlassian's product portfolio. In addition to lessons learned from Atlassian projects, product configurations, business process design, operational and security aspects, the community also focuses on strategic topics. Furthermore, the alliance enables a stronger presence vis-à-vis the manufacturer Atlassian. For example, ACOmarket has successfully teamed up with the Bundesbeschaffungsgesellschaft (Federal Procurement Agency, in German) to conduct a tender (licences, services, operation) for Atlassian products.