Computing Centre of SAS History
SAS was founded on April 4, 1976 by a decree of SAS board of directors and with the original name Central Computing Centre of SAS. SAS was using computers since 1959; the first analog computer was build at the Institute of Technical Cybernetics. The era of digital computers started some five
years later. SAS Institutes were first using ZRA -1 (1962 - 1968, . KrlZeiss Jena) and GIER (1968 - 1976 REGNECENTRALEN, Copenhagen) computers located in the cybernetics institute. Due to increased demand for computing resources, researchers started using also external computers CDC 3300 (VVS OSN, now INFOSTAT) and SIEMENS 4004 (ÚVTVŠ in Mlynská dolina). A liaison workplace was created in 1973 as part of the Cybernetics Institute to promote the usage of computers, which was staffed by 52 SAS programmers. The project to build a Central Computing Centre of SAS began. The project to build a new building for the computing centre of SAS started in 1976 and in 1979 the building was already equipped SM computers. The building was designed for two mainframe computers of the type EC 1045, which were installed in 1982.
The period from 1982 to 1990 brought the greatest proliferation of computing services in SAS and is an example of how the Computing Center SAS could support research institutions by providing both computing time and programming and analysis support with a separate group dedicated to the development of new algorithms. During this time the number of employees reached more than 80. After 1990 the EC computers became outdated, faulty and energy inefficient, so their usage decreased. Personal computers were becoming more popular with the option for every employee to work separately at their own desk. Computing projects started emphasising software for personal computers and the demand for programming and the computing resources at the Computing Centre of SAS started to decline. A new phenomenon call the INTERNET appeared and the Computing Centre of SAS started building the first fibre optic network of SAS already in 1991.
21 buildings were connected to the Computing Centre of SAS by multimodal and were connected through switches into a single large local network.
Later more Institutes located in Bratislava were connected to the network by radio lines. Email was very popular among SAS employees and became the most demanded service. The possibility to freely travel and work abroad and to freely communicate without governmental supervision enabled further advancement of information technology in the Computing Centre of SAS. The crowded and cheap network became a barrier in further development because of low communication speeds. Scientific calculations necessitated the purchase of type RISC 6000 computers in 1992 and in 1994 the first supercomputer in Slovakia was placed in the Computing Centre of SAS. It was the SGI Power Challenge with a single processor. It was later replaced by an 8 processor ORIGIN 2000. The Computing Center SAS was connected to the backbone network of the Slovak Republic with speeds of 1 Gb/s during 2001 - 2002 as a part of the SANET II project. This increased network speeds in some areas up to 500 times. SAS Computing Centre of SAS became a node of the backbone network. More institutes from Bratislava were connected to the backbone network by fibre optics. A virtual network of SAS was created based on the SANET II network. In 2012 a new supercomputer "Aurel" and a new computing cluster for scientific computing was purchased with the help of EU funding.
Computing Centre of SAS directors
since | 1.4.1976 | Ing.Štefan Kohút |
since | 1.1.1977 | RNDr.Vojtech Jankovič,CSc |
since | 1.3.1993 | RNDr. Peter Slavkovský, CSc |
since | 1.1.1998 | RNDr. Jaroslav Bobovský |
since | 1.1.2001 | Ing. Štefan Kohút |
since | 1.1.2007 | Ing. Tomáš Lacko |
since | 1.3.2017 | Mgr. Lukáš Demovič, PhD. |
A list of technical equipment since 1976
1976 | External computers SIEMENS 4004 in ÚVT VŠ, CDC 3300 in INFOSTAT |
1979 | SM-3-10, SM-3-20 |
1982 | 2x EC 1045 (IBM 370): 4 MB RAM, 9 GB HDD, max. performance 0,6 Mflops |
1983 | SM-52-12 : 4 MB RAM, 0,9 GB HDD, max. performance 0,2 Mflops |
1989 | First personal computer - IBM PC XT : 640 KB RAM, 20 MB HDD |
1991 | Computer network LAN-SAV; Internet connection |
1992 | Computing servers type RISC IBM RS/6000 model 950 and model 550: each 128 MB RAM and together 10 GB HDD, max. performance 83 Mflops |
1993 | Network server Sun Sparc Station: 64 MB RAM, 5,7 GB HDD |
1994 | Supercomputer SGI Power Challenge L : 1 proc. R8000/75 MHz, 256 MB RAM, 10 GB HDD, max. performance 310 Mflops |
1999 | Supercomputer SGI Origin 2000 deskside : 6 proc. R10000 250 MHz, 1,5 GB RAM, 72 GB HDD, max. performance 2400 Mflops = 2,4 Gflops |
2000 | Upgrade to 8 proc. R10000 250 MHz, 2 GB RAM, 252 GB HDD, max. performance 3200 Mflops= 3,2 Gflops |
2001 | Bratislava radio lines replaced, new switches in the central LAN, higher availability, new monitoring system |
2002 | 100Mb/s fibre optic network for SAS institutes, new email and web servers, new information system WEBSAV, connection to SANET II network with the speed of 1Gb/s, SAS connected to the internet by 1Gb/s |
2007 | SAVBA node connected to SANET backbone with the speed of 10Gb/s |
2010-2011 | 1Gb/s in Bratislava – Patrónka |
2012 | 1Gb/s for the rest of Bratislava city, Aurel supercomputer and new scientific computing cluster purchased |
2013 | Radio connection Trnava – Smolenice replaced |
2014 | Aurel supercomputer expanded |
Number of employees since 1991
Year | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 |
Number of employees | 57 | 34 | 21 | 19 | 15 |
Year | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 |
Number of employees | 10 | 8 | 10 | ||
Year | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 |
Number of employees | 12 | 13 | 12 | 17 | 18 |
Year | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 |
Number of employees | 19 | 19 | 21 | 24 | 26 |
Year | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 |
Number of employees | 29 | 31 | 34 | 36 | 36 |
Year | 2016 | ||||
Number of employees | 34 |