ADA documentation

Welcome

ADA is the high-performance computing (HPC) cluster for researchers at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Named after Ada Lovelace, it serves as the successor to the BAZIS cluster and is managed by the IT for Research team.

NoteNew here? Start with these first.

• Request an account via the 🔒 VU Service Portal.
• New to bash and the command line? Get familiar with Linux basics first through Carpentries lessons.
• Set-up your SSH access by following the login instructions.
• New to HPC? Get familiar with HPC concepts through HPC Carpentries lessons.
• Run your first job with the Quick Start.

ADA at a Glance

• Heterogeneous cluster with CPU and GPU partitions financed by VU departments and central IT.
• Access to partitions depends on departmental ownership; community partitions are available to all approved users.
• Software stack combines centrally maintained modules with self-service tools (Pixi, Conda, Apptainer).
• Data on SciStor is mounted directly on ADA.
• For workloads demanding large GPU quotas, explore Snellius or work with your department on dedicated nodes.

Access, Policies, and Costs

• Eligibility: VU researchers and collaborators whose departments sponsor ADA hardware or are approved for community access.
• Requesting access: follow the account request instructions; requests must include your supervisor’s approval.
• Usage costs: Community partitions are free to use but shared; heavy or specialised workloads may require investing in departmental nodes.
• Dedicated hardware: Contact IT for Research to scope dedicated purchases or long-term resource planning.

When ADA Fits Your Work

Use ADA when you need more resources than a laptop or workstation: multi-core CPUs, large memory nodes, or batch GPU capacity. Jobs must run from the Linux command line in non-interactive mode—graphical tools require alternatives such as the VU Compute Hub or SURF Research Cloud.

Training and External Resources

• SURF Snellius wiki: Snellius knowledge base – much of it applies to ADA.
• Workshops: SURF’s free Introduction to Supercomputing courses provides transferable skills for ADA users.

Support

• Technical questions, quota requests, or procurement discussions: IT for Research
• Issues using the cluster? See Help to see how to ask for assistance effectively.

Documentation Feedback

• Found a typo, missing page, or confusing section? Please open an issue in the handbook’s issue tracker with:
  • Page path (for example manuals/ada/software.qmd) and what needs to change
  • A suggested fix or the exact text that confused you
  • Optional: a PR if you already made the change

If you prefer, you can also email [itvo.it@vu.nl] with the same details and we will triage it.

Maintainers

The cluster has been built and is maintained by:

• Davor Cvikic
• Kostas Vilkelis
• Wiebe J.R. Timmers

Browse the Manuals

The sections below surface all available ADA guides. Use the filters or search bar to jump directly to the topic you need.