Today, at the Western University of Timișoara (UVT), the press conference for the completion of the project "Modernization of the computing and storage infrastructure of the Informatics Research Center of the Western University of Timișoara for the provision of Cloud services and high-performance computing services - MOISE" (MYSMIS CODE: 124562).

The MOISE project was co-financed from the Competitiveness Operational Program 2014-2020 within the call for projects no. 398/1/1, Action 1.1.2. - Development of networks of CD centers, coordinated at national level and connected to European and international networks of profile and ensuring researchers' access to scientific publications and European and international databases, in accordance with funding contract no. 240/24.04.2020. The project took place over a period of 24 months, the value of the financing contract being 5.695.580,54 lei, of which 4.851.360,61 lei represents non-refundable financing.

The general objective of the MOISE project was aimed at increasing the existing computing and storage capacity in order to raise the level of international competitiveness of the West University of Timișoara by modernizing the existing computing and storage infrastructure to allow updating the offer of Cloud services and high performance data and integration into international Cloud structures and massive data infrastructures.

In order to comply with the principles of sustainable development and environmental objectives, this computing infrastructure, stored in a container, was integrated into the Urban Garden of UVT, emphasizing the open nature of informatics, the integration of the field into an academic ecosystem, in terms of training of students and applicability towards a sustainable, inclusive and interdisciplinary environment.

UVT rector, Marilen Gabriel Pirtea: "Through this project, an IT infrastructure was created that increased the computing and storage capacity five times at the Western University of Timișoara, through an investment of over 4.000.000 lei, which consisted in the purchase of IT equipment through that a container-type data center was created. This center complies with the most modern redundancy and safety standards, is modular and extensible, efficient and with a high availability of operation and data access. The model implemented by UVT, which combines the container-type modular data center, hosted outside the building, with the computing and data storage infrastructure, is an innovative one in the public sector in Romania because, as a rule, it is practiced to set up computing centers in the interior of the buildings (without complying with all the standards of arrangement, cooling, fire extinguishing or redundant supply of electricity). Here is an absolutely effective project with European funding, the MOISE Project leading to the creation of a modern data center at UVT, in Timișoara."

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Descriptive data and contextualization of the container data center:

The new computing infrastructure installed consists of 2048 processors, 16TB of RAM memory and 200TB of dedicated data storage space (with 100% availability).

In comparative terms, the new infrastructure is clearly superior to the capacities previously installed at UVT:

– compared to the computing capacity of a 2022 generation laptop, of ultra-performance level, the computing infrastructure structured by the MOISE project is equivalent to approximately 800 such laptops;

– compared to the IBM BlueGene/P system (the peak infrastructure previously installed at UVT), the new computing infrastructure structured by the MOISE project is 5 times faster, in terms of net performance, at the level of raw computing power and storage capacity data.

The installed computing infrastructure uses a generic computing architecture that can accommodate a wide range of computing programs and accommodate any type of data to be processed. Therefore, the fields of research that can benefit from this infrastructure are varied: environmental sciences, medical research, monitoring of industrial equipment for automatic detection of anomalies in the production cycle, optimization of autonomous driving systems in the automotive industry and many other sectors and areas of applicability. Beneficiaries, such as researchers or research groups, public institutions and organizations, excluding private beneficiaries, may use this computing infrastructure for the purpose of carrying out research activities.

Also, during the research activities, within the MOISE project, a series of widely used applications and data sets in the field of environmental sciences (Earth Observation) and industrial equipment monitoring were perfected. In the field of Environmental Sciences, there is a strategic collaboration with the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) for the publication and processing of satellite images, with applicability in various fields of vegetation detection, climate change or infrastructure changes. An interesting product of the research activities is the cube of historical satellite data on the area of ​​Romania and Moldova (with satellite images from the ESA Copernicus program), which offers users the possibility to quickly download satellite products, on a certain area of ​​interest and a certain window of time, for further processing. A second application of interest, this time in the field of industrial equipment monitoring, is the automatic anomaly detection system, in different data streams, which can be easily adapted to different fields of interest, such as the automatic monitoring and maintenance of industrial equipment, as well as for error detection in automotive industry equipment.

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Project co-financed from the European Regional Development Fund through the Competitiveness Operational Program 2014-2020]

Contact: Project manager: prof. univ. dr. Viorel BLACK

Email: viorel.negru@e-uvt.ro, phone: 0755240164

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