The New Year offers us new perspectives, presents new challenges, we look in future with hope of something new and better. Every New Year is also an occasion to draw conclusions, reflections on what we have done, what we have achieved in the past year. For Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center year 2010 was unique in several aspects. We present a brief summary of PSNC’s activity in the last twelve months.
In 2010, Poznan’s Center manifested its activity on many levels, not only in the world of IT. Among numerous events, representatives of PSNC participated in: third Economic Forum of the Poznan Agglomeration, the polish meetings („PolSCA Meetings”) at the Brussels headquarters of Promotion of Science, Academy of Sciences meeting with experts of the European Commission, as well as in Polish-German Economic Forum “Berlin-Wielkopolska 2010”. As in previous years, PSNC attended an unusual project which is the Night of Scientists. In 2010, the interest in Internet radios that operate through a system EMITER, that runs in the PIONIER network highly increased. In 2010 a signal of more than 50 radio stations was registered.
The passing year was also traditionally marked by participation in international scientific conferences. As in previous years, representatives from different teams participated in dozens of PSNC’s scientific conferences, workshops and meetings of working groups, both as participants and organizers, co-organizers and partners. They presented achievements of the Center and exchanged experiences with programmers from around the world. Among others these events may be mentioned: TERENA Networking Conference (TNC) in Vilnius, GeeCON in Poznan, CeBIT in Hannover, INGRID in Poznan, ISC in Hamburg, eChallanges in Warsaw, Supercomputing in New Orleans, Future Internet Week in Ghent (Belgium) and i3: Internet – Infrastructure – Innovation in Wroclaw.
In the last twelve months we terminated several major investments in construction of Polish Optical Internet PIONIER network – a nationwide broadband optical science network. We finished, among others, installation of a new optical transmission system in relation Elblag – Braniewo – Gronowo, we created the possibility of connecting the PIONIER network with the research network in Russia. At the end of 2010, the south-east loop of the network was closed.
Similarly to the last year, PSNC has made several Internet “live” broadcasts. Among them, Olympic Games in Vancuover and World Cup in South Africa. In 2010, as in previous years, via cameras placed on the chimney of the building in Chyby near Poznan, we were able to track the stork’s nest. Thanks to Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center the 14th of the National Youth Meeting on Lednica fields and the sixteenth edition of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition were broadcasted. Major logistic and organizational projects were also broadcasted straight from the hospital operating rooms. In sum, thanks to the cooperation of Department of Otolaryngology, University of Medical Sciences and PSNC during the last year there have been several such transmission.
The year 2010 was also the beginning of the next project challenges for the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center. At the beginning of April PSNC joined the European project IMPACT. In the autumn the second edition of PRACE project was launched – PRACE-RI and a new project SYNAT was inaugurated.
After months of hard work there was also time for appreciation. In June, during the Second European Economic Congress, held in Katowice, PSNC was the winner of the 10th anniversary edition of the Crystal Brussels Prize. Later that same month we were awarded for the e-government of the city of Poznan, co-authored by Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center. According to the jury, PSNC created the most friendly administartion to people on the Internet, and that’s why the Poznań municipal portal deserved the Golden @ Prize 2010. In November the Centre received the joyful information that the “Reef” cluster working for the PSNC has once again found himself on the list of 500 most powerful computers in the world. “Reef” came in 312nd position in the TOP500 ranking.
We hope that the year 2011 will bring even more cause for celebration to our Centre and you will continue to monitor our progress.
Kinga Jurga
Agnieszka Musialska
