<metaname="description"content="Geospatial Computing Platform of the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente"/>
<pclass="text-white-75 font-weight-light mb-4">Do you need an infrastructure to analyse geospatial data? Do you need parallel, distributed, or GPU-assisted computing capabilities for machine learning and AI applications involving (big) geospatial data?</p>
<pclass="text-white-75 mb-0">Based on the <ahref="https://www.itc.nl/.uc/f005f828001025fdfb5006b505002370da2ce543cd49600/Big%20Data%20at%20ITC.pdf"target="_blank"class="text-white">user needs assessment</a> we have designed and implemented a computing infrastructure to serve high-priority activities, such as exploratory research, prototyping, and self-learning. It is tailored for big data analysis, but feel free to use it for other geospatial computing needs!</p>
<pclass="text-white-75 mb-0">The platform utilizes innovative hardware and state-of-the-art software components to provide a highly-available and performant computing environment.</p>
<pclass="text-muted mb-0"><ahref="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-agx-xavier/"target="_blank">NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier</a> units with 1 TB local and 200 TB network storage connected through Gigabit Ethernet empower the platform.</p>
<imgsrc="img/jupyterlab.png"class="img-fluid"alt="Powered by JupyterLab"/>
<h3class="h4 mb-2">Interactive</h3>
<pclass="text-muted mb-0">Interactive <ahref="https://jupyter.org/"target="_blank">Jupyter</a> notebooks provide easy to use and user friendly data analysis and visualization environment.</p>
<ahref="https://jupyterlab.readthedocs.io/en/stable/"target="_blank"class="badge badge-pill badge-success">Powered by JupyterLab</a>
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<imgsrc="img/dask.png"class="img-fluid"alt="Powered by Dask"/>
<h3class="h4 mb-2">Scalable</h3>
<pclass="text-muted mb-0">All units in the platform and their <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit"target="_blank">GPUs</a> are available for distributed out-of-core geospatial data analysis purposes.</p>
<ahref="https://dask.org/"target="_blank"class="badge badge-pill badge-success">Powered by Dask and Apache Spark</a>
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<imgsrc="img/multilingual.png"class="img-fluid"alt="Multiple programming languages are supported"/>
<h3class="h4 mb-2">Multilingual</h3>
<pclass="text-muted mb-0">Multiple programming languages can be used to access platform resources and perform geospatial computations.</p>
<pclass="text-white-75 mb-0">Quite often you may also need additional services, such as a database to store your data, a map server to publish your maps, a data repository to share your research data. To facilitate and support your work we provide some out-of-the-box services!</p>
<pclass="text-muted mb-0">Open source research data repository software</p>
<aclass="badge badge-pill badge-danger mb-4"href="https://itc.nl/research/data-policy-implementation/"target="_blank">In cooperation with ITC Research Data Team</a>
<pclass="text-white-75 mb-0">Below you can find answers to some questions about the computing platform and related services. Please <ahref="/support/kb/"class="text-light js-scroll-trigger">visit the Support Center Knowledgebase</a> for more!</p>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold">How can I access to the platform?</p>
<p>You can access to the platform at <ahref="https://crib.utwente.nl/geospatialhub/">https://crib.utwente.nl/geospatialhub</a> by using your personal University of Twente account (i.e., e-mail address and password).</p>
<p>Unless stated otherwise, all additional services (e.g. GeoServer, Gitea) can also be accessed in the same way. Each service may require you to sign in separately.</p>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold mt-5">Is it secure?</p>
<p>Your connection to the platform is secure (i.e. encrypted) and has <ahref="#"data-toggle="modal"data-target="#modal-ssl-rating">A rating</a> from <ahref="https://www.ssllabs.com/"target="_blank">SSL Labs</a>.</p>
<p>Your working environment is created on demand and isolated from the others which are active on the platform. Therefore, your assets (e.g. files, documents, images, etc.) are only accessible to you.</p>
<p>The platform uses University of Twente <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Directory_Access_Protocol"title="Lightweight Directory Access Protocol"target="_blank">LDAP</a> service to authenticate your credentials also through a secure connection and does not store your password.</p>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold mt-5">How can I use the platform?</p>
<p>The default interface of the platform is <ahref="https://jupyter.org/"target="_blank">JupyterLab</a>, which enables you to work with interactive notebooks and documents through text and code editors, terminals, and other custom components (e.g. map widgets).</p>
<p>If you are new to JupyterLab (or Jupyter notebooks in general), a good starting point is its <ahref="https://jupyterlab.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html"target="_blank">official documentation</a>, which includes a detailed user guide. There is also a nice and short (~ 6 min.) <ahref="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5YyoCKxEOU"target="_blank">introduction video</a> available.</p>
<p>For specific components integrated to the platform (e.g. <ahref="https://github.com/cdr/code-server"target="_blank">Code Server</a>), please refer to their own documentation.</p>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold mt-5">Which languages are supported by the platform?</p>
<p>The platform has kernels for <ahref="https://www.python.org/"target="_blank">Python</a><spanclass="text-muted">(3.8.5)</span>, <ahref="https://www.r-project.org/"target="_blank">R</a><spanclass="text-muted">(4.1.0)</span>, <ahref="https://golang.org/"target="_blank">Go</a><spanclass="text-muted">(1.16.3)</span>, Julia <spanclass="text-muted">(1.5.4)</span>, Java <spanclass="text-muted">(11.0.11)</span>, Scala <spanclass="text-muted">(2.12.12)</span>, PHP <spanclass="text-muted">(7.4.3)</span>, Ruby <spanclass="text-muted">(2.7.0)</span>, Octave <spanclass="text-muted">(6.2.0)</span>, dot <spanclass="text-muted">(2.43.0)</span>, gnuplot <spanclass="text-muted">(5.2)</span> which you can use in interactive notebooks. All these languages are also accessible through the terminal interface. By using the terminal you can also use <ahref="https://gcc.gnu.org/"target="_blank">C</a><spanclass="text-muted">(GNU 9.3)</span>, <ahref="https://gcc.gnu.org/"target="_blank">C++</a><spanclass="text-muted">(GNU 9.3)</span>, <ahref="https://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/"target="_blank">Fortran</a><spanclass="text-muted">(GNU 9.3)</span>, <ahref="https://www.perl.org/"target="_blank">Perl</a><spanclass="text-muted">(5.30)</span>, and <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA"target="_blank">CUDA</a><spanclass="text-muted">(10.2)</span>.</p>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold mt-5">Which libraries and packages are supported by the platform?</p>
<p>Complete list of system packages (including low-level libraries, e.g. <ahref="https://www.openblas.net/"target="_blank">OpenBLAS</a>, <ahref="http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/"target="_blank">ATLAS</a>, <ahref="https://proj.org/"target="_blank">PROJ</a>, <ahref="https://gdal.org/"target="_blank">GDAL</a>, etc.) and language-specific packages (e.g. Python and R packages) are listed under <code>public/platform</code> folder on the platform.</p>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold mt-5">Why the latest version of <em>xxx</em> is not available?</p>
<p>We do our best to make the latest versions of software packages and libraries available. However, occasionally certain versions of the packages are not compatible to each other or not fully supported by the platform architecture (<ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu"target="_blank">Linux</a> / <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver"target="_blank">ARM v8.2a</a>) - so we have to choose. If you are not happy with the selection please <ahref="#contact"class="js-scroll-trigger">let us know</a>.</p>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold mt-5">Why <em>xxx</em> is not available?</p>
<p>We are trying to make widely-used software packages and libraries available with a special focus on geo-information and Earth observation. In fact, we did a survey to understand your needs and determined the list accordingly. We will periodically review this list and add more packages.</p>
<p>If the software package you need is not available on the platform (yet), the reasons could be:</p>
<ul>
<liclass="mb-3">We may not be aware of it. Just <ahref="#contact"class="js-scroll-trigger">contact us</a> and tell us what you need. Most probably we can make it available quickly, especially if it is an open source software.</li>
<liclass="mb-3">It might be a package we are currently working on. Some packages have a long list of dependencies and they are difficult to setup, especially on a platform composed of special units (i.e. <ahref="https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems/jetson-agx-xavier/"target="_blank">Jetson AGX Xavier</a>) which are quite different from standard equipment (e.g. servers). Probably we solve all the issues and make it available soon.</li>
<liclass="mb-3">It might be a package that is not supported by the platform architecture (<ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu"target="_blank">Linux</a> / <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver"target="_blank">ARM v8.2a</a>). Unfortunately such software packages exist (e.g. Microsoft Windows applications). But there might be some alternatives available and we can help you to find them if you <ahref="#contact"class="js-scroll-trigger">contact us</a>.</li>
<li>It might be proprietary requiring a license. Currently we don't support such software packages, but this may change in the future. Please <ahref="#contact"class="js-scroll-trigger">let us know</a> if you need such software products.</li>
</ul>
<pclass="text-primary font-weight-bold mt-5">Can I install software packages?</p>
<p>Sure. System-wide packages are protected, but you can install additional software packages to your workspace (i.e. home folder). For Python, you can use <ahref="https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/"target="_blank">pip</a>. For R, you can use <code>install.package()</code> command. Please <ahref="#contact"class="js-scroll-trigger">contact us</a> for other languages and low-level libraries.</p>
