GRICAD

GRICAD, the Data and High-Performance Computing infrastructure, supported by UGA, CNRS, G-INP and INRIA, aims to support Grenoble’s research communities in their scientific computing, data management and research software needs. As well as providing scientific projects with expertise in these areas, it offers a range of freely accessible digital services, from access to supercomputers to a GitLab software forge.

The GRICAD Support and Research Unit (UAR in french) was created on 1 January 2016 to meet the challenges of current scientific needs in terms of intensive computing and data. The creation of this unit is part of an overall site strategy for digital technology in which all the structures involved are participating. The unit has a rich history: the CIMENT project.

GRICAD’s main objectives:

Intensive computing and the processing, dissemination and preservation of scientific data are at the heart of today’s research activities. No discipline is immune to the explosion or increasing complexity of data volumes or to the need to use large-scale computing resources to simulate, model, analyse, process and so on.

These challenges are taking place against a backdrop of very rapid technical developments in the various technologies of High Performance Computing (HPC), the cloud and data (storage, mining, processing, etc.), and the growing importance of energy sobriety and the eco-efficiency of digital infrastructures.

GRICAD’s main missions are:

  • Providing all research communities with advanced, shared services and infrastructures for intensive computing and the exploitation of research data.
  • Participation in site services and infrastructures in terms of hosting, storage and virtualisation.
  • Supporting and advising research communities on their computing, research software development and data-related needs.

Computing and data ecosystem

Local context

These missions are part of a ‘Computing and Data’ ecosystem and GRICAD aims to cover the needs of research teams in their use of digital technology.

The UAR is involved in the site’s shared digital infrastructure projects and therefore has strong partnerships with all the players on the site:

  • Research laboratories,
  • ISDs of the institutions,
  • joint services of the supervisory bodies,
  • teaching components.

In addition, it pools the skills and expertise present according to an original organisational model:

  • staff attached to the structure,
  • staff from the research units, common services and teaching components invested part-time in the projects supported by GRICAD.

This organisation encourages close links with the research teams and enhances the skills of those involved in the projects.

Collaborations: from the region to Europe

The UAR GRICAD is immersed in interconnected ecosystems of digital infrastructures and services at different scales: regional, national and European.

UAR GRICAD is firmly rooted in these ecosystems, developing partnerships at different levels:

GRICAD’s commitment to sustainable science

GRICAD has set itself the cross-cutting objective of facilitating open and reproducible digital scientific production while reducing its environmental footprint.

To achieve this goal, we provide the tools and support needed to quantify and reduce the environmental impact of digital activities: find out more.

At the same time, we are facilitating the practical application of open science principles by offering tools and support to make it easier to access and share data and software code: find out more.

Finally, we strive to increase the reproducibility of the scientific results produced using our services by proposing solutions to improve research practices and facilitate computational reproducibility: find out more.