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Interactive HPC Supercomputing UCloud

UCloud 2025.4.0 Release

Command palette, integrated editor & terminal, faster file search and a simpler Syncthing UI. Today we’re releasing UCloud 2025.4.0! This update introduces a keyboard-driven command palette, a built-in text editor, an integrated terminal, a fully revamped file search, and a simplified Syncthing experience.

While these new tools will be the most visible changes for users, they are also part of a broader, long-term effort to refine UCloud’s foundations.

“Software development on UCloud started back in 2017. Since then, we have make many architectural and design changes. This progress inevitably caused a build-up of inconsistensies and inefficiencies. With our understanding of the goal now being a lot clearer than in 2017, the aim is to simplify the internal code structure and get rid of old legacy code to ensure stability, performance and faster development of the service.”

Dan Sebastian Thrane, Senior Software Architect for Research Infrastructure

With that context in mind, here’s a closer look at what’s new in UCloud 2025.4.0.

Navigation and shortcuts

We have added a fast way to move around UCloud without leaving the keyboard.

  • Keyboard-first workflow: Use it to access shortcuts to common actions, jump to your favorite applications, or quickly switch projects.
  • Command palette: Open the palette with Ctrl+P on Windows/Linux or Cmd+P on macOS.

Files and search

Finding things is now much quicker and more reliable and edit text files directly in UCloud without needing to start a job.

  • Revamped file search: File search has been completely rebuilt and is now significantly faster. This requires your files to be indexed. Indexing of files may take up to 24 hours after the file has been created.
  • Edit-in-place: Double-click any text file in the file browser to open it in the new integrated editor.
  • Syntax highlighting: The editor supports basic syntax highlighting.
  • Tabs & file tree: Work across multiple tabs and use the sidebar to navigate your project’s file tree quickly.

Integrated terminal

A lightweight terminal is now available across Kubernetes-based service providers.

  • Auto-shutdown: Sessions shut down automatically when inactive. (Do not use it for long-running or background tasks.)
  • Availability: The integrated terminal is now available on the SDU/K8s provider. It works similar to the terminal released last year for the SDU/Hippo provider. You can open a terminal in any folder via “Open terminal” button.
  • For small tasks: Ideal for quick edits and running common utilities.
  • Resource limits: The terminal has low CPU and memory and (is not intended for running jobs).

Jobs and Syncthing

New real-time metrics have been added to jobs and the Syncthing has been made easier to understand and operate.

  • Simplified interface: A cleaner, more approachable Syncthing UI for managing synchronization.
  • Real-time job metrics: You can now monitor real time metrics about CPU, memory and GPU utilization from the job view.

Improved data transfer

The integration module has received a large upgrade to the upload protocol.

  • This protocol is used both by end-users and between service providers.
  • Data transfer between the SDU and AAU provider is now much easier and faster.
  • The upload protocol is smart and attempts to avoid sending files which are already present. It also utilizes multiple TCP streams and threads to maximize performance.

As always, you can visit UCloud’s documentation at https://docs.cloud.sdu.dk for more information.

Categories
Application Supercomputing Tutorial Webinars & Tutorials - video

Webinar Recording: ChatUI and CVAT pipelines

In this video we will guide you through two different AI based workflows, involving ChatUI and CVAT apps.

You will learn how to:

  • Use advanced CVAT features including auto-annotation, algorithmic assistance, management and analytics.
  • Use Chat UI as a flexible interface for hosting of various LLM models, and interact via a chat or API environment.
  • Use ChatUI for semantic search in a knowledge base.
  • Use CVAT as a powerful annotation tool, including image classification, object detection, semantic and instance segmentation, and video / 3D annotations.
Categories
Interactive HPC Teaching Tutorial Webinars & Tutorials - video

Webinar Recording: Transcribing and editing audio transcriptions with Transcriber and Speech Analyzer apps

In this video we will guide you through the complete pipeline of transcribing audio files from speech to text and editing and classifying transcription segments.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

  • Use Transcriber for transcribing audio/video files. Transcriber is based on Open AI’s Whisper language model. The app can transcribe speech audio to text in various formats and uses the WhisperX package to perform speaker recognition.
  • Navigate the new, simple, drag and drop Transcriber user interface to make it easier for you to use AI to transcribe audio files.
  • Edit and classify the transcriptions with Speech Analyzer. Speech Analyzer is an application built on top of Label Studio, specifically optimized for dialogue analysis. It enables you to label, edit, and annotate transcriptions generated using Transcriber.
  • Perform a comprehensive dialogue analysis on UCloud involving transcribing audio files using Transcriber, followed by transcription analysis with Speech Analyzer.

All workflows will be executed inside a UCloud project environment with access to GPU resources.

Target audience: Researchers across all Departments, particularly Digital Humanities and Social Science, Students, AI interested.

Categories
Interactive HPC Supercomputing Tutorial UCloud Webinars & Tutorials - video Workshop

Webinar recording: Fine-Tuning and Deploying  Large Language Models

In this video we will guide you through the complete pipeline of fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) for specialised tasks such as medical question-answering using NeMo Framework and Triton Inference Server.

  • Prepare and preprocess open-source datasets for fine-tuning.
  • Apply Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT) using LoRA with NVIDIA NeMo Framework.
  • Deploy optimised LLMs using NVIDIA Triton Inference Server and TensorRT-LLM.
  • Generate a synthetic Q&A dataset using Label Studio connected to a live inference backend.
  • Fine-tune and evaluate your customised LLM for domain-specific applications.

All workflows will be executed inside a UCloud project environment with access to GPU resources.

Target audience: Machine learning practitioners, researchers, and engineers interested in LLM customisation, domain adaptation, or scalable model deployment.

Technical Level: Intermediate to Advanced.

Notebooks: https://github.com/emolinaro/ucloud-workshop-28-05-2025

Categories
Application Interactive HPC Supercomputing Teaching Tutorial Webinars & Tutorials - video

Webinar recording: UCloud courses hands-on

In this video we will go through the process of developing a course on UCloud, using UCloud Courses – a tool for hosting and managing university courses on UCloud. Want to know more about this new feature, check out our webinar recording introducing UCloud Courses.

Introduction

00:00 – Outline of the workshop agenda
03:10 – Introduction to the UCloud Courses concept
04:23 – Advantages of using UCloud Courses
05:56 – Outline of the steps involved in developing a UCloud Course
09:54 – Requesting and planning a UCloud Course
10:20 – Example of the planning and structuring of an existing UCloud Course

Developing a UCloud Course step by step

Setting up the environment
15:53 – Preliminary remarks
17:15 – Showing the existing UCloud Course that will be re-developed in the workshop
18:02 – Showing the UCloud-Courses GitHub repository
18:40 – Software requirements and -recommendations
20:22 – Short introduction to Git and GitHub
24:27 – Cloning the repository
25:15 – Creating a working branch
26:12 – What should go in the UCloud-Courses repository and what shouldn’t
27:24 – Installing the required dependencies

Creating a new UCloud Course and modifying the templates
28:00 – Creating a UCloud Course using a prepared script
30:31 – Walk-through of the different auto-generated files/folders in the course folder
33:35 – Short introduction to Docker
38:15 – Modifying the Dockerfile
42:32 – What should go in the UCloud-Courses repository and what shouldn’t
45:28 – Building the Docker image locally using a prepared script
47:54 – Modifying the starting script
01:00:50 – What can, shouldn’t, and mustn’t be changed while the course is running

Building and testing the course locally
01:05:00 – Re-building the Docker image locally using a prepared script
01:05:25 – Running a Docker container locally using a prepared script
01:10:58 – Opening the JupyterLab interface on localhost

Finalising the course app
01:12:48 – Opening a pull request and requesting code review
01:19:44 – Testing the course app on UCloud before it’s deployed

Closing remarks

01:25:44 – Reusing/updating an existing UCloud course
01:28:19 – The financial model in brief
01:29:38 – Useful links and resources

UCloud-Courses GitHub repository:
https://github.com/SDU-eScience/UCloud-Courses

README in the UCloud-Courses GitHub repository:
https://github.com/SDU-eScience/UCloud-Courses/blob/main/README.md

Wiki page in the UCloud-Courses GitHub repository:
https://github.com/SDU-eScience/UCloud-Courses/wiki

The UCloud course app redeveloped in the workshop (UCloud login required):
https://cloud.sdu.dk/app/jobs/create?app=nlp-demo-course_147222U005

eScience Servicedesk (point of first contact):
https://support.escience.sdu.dk/

Categories
Application Interactive HPC

New App: AlphaFold 3 – a game-changing tool for predicting protein structure

AlphaFold 3, the new AI model developed by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, can predict the structures of complexes formed by different biomolecules, including protein-DNA, protein-RNA, and protein-ligand interactions. 

AlphaFold 3 deployment on Interactive HPC – UCloud is optimized for use with GPUs, and includes the necessary multiple genetic (sequence) protein and RNA databases to run.

Beside the Batch Mode, additional app flavors (Lab Mode and Visualization Mode) allow respectively to use the software in a JupyterLab environment and to visualize protein structures obtained by running AlphaFold 3.

AlphaFold 3 has been implemented on Interactive HPC – UCloud to support specific type of work, e.g., accurate structure prediction and modelling, and is ready for use by all Interactive HPC – UCloud users.

For more details, visit the UCloud documentation for the app.

Categories
Call Interactive HPC Supercomputing

Reduced Resources in Upcoming national HPC Call

The position of Chair of the DeiC Board is currently vacant, leading to delays in decision-making processes and affecting upcoming national HPC calls.

John Renner Hansen has stepped down as Chair of the DeiC Board. As a result, the DeiC Board is currently unable to make financial decisions, which impacts several ongoing and upcoming HPC activities.

A new Chair is expected to be appointed by the Rectors’ Conference of Danish Universities in early August 2025.

Fewer Resources in Upcoming National HPC Call

The next national HPC call will open on 15 July 2025 and covers the compute period from 1 January to 31 December 2026. DeiC’s current contracts with DeiC Interactive HPC will expire on 31 December 2025, and work is underway to establish a new agreement. However, as the Board is not currently quorate, there is no guarantee that new agreements will be in place before the call opens. Therefore, the upcoming national call will only include national compute time on LUMI.

For more information, please contact your local Front Office.

This is an adaption of the story published by DeiC https://deic.dk/en/news/2025-6-20/delayed-quantum-calls-and

Categories
Application Supercomputing UCloud

New app: ONLYOFFICE Now Available on UCloud

ONLYOFFICE is a browser-based office suite for creating and editing text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Fully compatible with Microsoft Office formats, the interface supports a seamless user experience for those familiar with traditional desktop editors.

Designed to support document work directly within the UCloud environment, ONLYOFFICE allows users to:

  • Edit and create documents stored on UCloud
  • Work with word documents, presentations, and spreadsheets
  • Upload and download files without leaving the platform
  • Maintain full compatibility with Microsoft Office file types

The app provides core functionality through a lightweight, browser-accessible interface. No additional software installation is required.

ONLYOFFICE is available to all UCloud users and is particularly relevant for:

  • Editing or preparing academic documents
  • Managing structured data in spreadsheets
  • Creating or reviewing presentations
  • Performing collaborative writing tasks

For more details, visit the UCloud documentation.

App Suggestions and Support

To suggest additional applications or request new features, contact your local Front Office.

Categories
Teaching Tutorial UCloud Webinars & Tutorials - video Workshop

Webinar recording: Introduction to hosting courses on UCloud

In this video we will introduce the new UCloud Courses app – a tool for hosting and managing university courses on UCloud.

Dr. Federica Lo Verso will walk you through the concept and background of the app.
You’ll get a hands-on demonstration of how to access and use the tool, explore its integration with GitHub, and hear directly from Dr. Himanshu Khandelia, who shares his experience using UCloud Courses in real teaching scenarios.

We’ll also guide you through the application process, show you the technical and financial requirements, and give you a preview of an upcoming hands-on course.

00:00 – Introduction by Dr. Federica Lo Verso
01:23 – Background: Launch of the new UCloud Courses app
04:12 – Walkthrough: Where to find the Courses app and how to use it
07:00 – Recap of the UCloud Courses app demonstration
07:56 – Walkthrough: How the GitHub repository works
10:07 – Advantages of using UCloud Courses
11:12 – Use case introduction: Dr. Himanshu Khandelia
11:58 – Testimonial: Dr. Khandelia shares his experience using UCloud Courses
14:00 – Live demo: Dr. Khandelia shows his use of Courses and GitHub integration
23:00 – Application procedure
24:21 – Necessary resources: Compute and storage
25:28 – Re-use and update existing UCloud Courses
26:20 – Financial model for support
27:12 – Outro and teaser for the upcoming hands-on course

Categories
Application Supercomputing UCloud

New app: Manage your next event with Indico

Indico is a robust open-source platform for event organization, archiving, and collaboration, ideal for managing conferences, workshops, and scientific meetings.

Key features include:

  • Event Management: Indico allows you to organize a wide range of events, from small seminars to large conferences. It supports the entire event lifecycle, including registration, abstract and final paper submission.
  • Hierarchical Protection: Indico uses a hierarchical protection scheme that allows for different roles and protection levels within events. 
  • Integration with Collaborative Tools: Indico integrates seamlessly with tools like Zoom, enhancing the productivity of web-driven meetings. 
  • Document Management: Indico facilitates easy upload and retrieval of presentations, papers, and other documents.

Indico has been implemented on UCloud and is ready for use by all UCloud users.

For more details, visit UCloud docs for full documentation.