ETH ZURICH - ETH - Finanzen und Controlling

Infrastructure
Real Estate
Suleika Dünner, Security Service
“So long as everything is OK, the scientists at ETH Zurich
barely come into contact with me. But if someone urgently
has to get into a building outside opening hours and their
ETH card doesn’t work, then I come to help. I check whether
the person who has called the emergency centre is really
entitled to gain access, and then I open the door for them.
I work in the alarm section of the department of Security,
Health and Environment (SGU). Wearing my uniform,
equipped with a radio, mobile phone and pager, I go on my
rounds through and around the ETH buildings. Are all the
windows shut, the doors locked? Why is there a puddle on
the floor in the corridor? Do I need to notify the out-ofhours
caretaker?
If the emergency centre reports that a door alarm has been
triggered or there is a technical fault in a HVAC-system, I interrupt
my round. I go and have a look to see if I can sort
out the fault or if I need to call for help. I never know what’s
waiting for me when I start work – and that’s what I like
about working for the security section.”
– ETH Zurich properties (owned): 204
– Rented properties: 45
– Managed area in use: 430,832 m 2
– Net managed floor space: 849,363 m 2
IT Services
Olivier Byrde, mathematician
“How to meet the growing demand for computing power
from ETH scientists? That was the question facing me when
I took over as Head of the High Performance Computing
Group in IT Services two years ago. My answer was to use
the existing resources more efficiently, and to persuade the
researchers to take a financial stake in developing them.
To this end, my team and I created a new supercomputer –
the Brutus Cluster, for which we used components of computers
that were already being operated by IT Services. An
important feature of Brutus is that the heterogeneous
structure remains invisible, so it is easier to use than all its
predecessors. This approach proved more successful than
I could ever have hoped. Now there are 500 scientists
from all ETH departments using the computing power of
the cluster, and 30 professors have made a financial investment.
We are currently working to expand the computing power.
When this process is completed, Brutus will be able to carry
out 75 billion calculations per second (75 teraflops), 16 times
more than just one year ago. I’m sure this massive computing
power will open up entirely new opportunities to ETH
researchers.”
Active IP addresses: 112,600
Wireless Access Points: 1,001
Web accesses to the ETH Zurich Course Catalogue: 6,312,462
Data stored by NetBackup in data silos (in TB): 2,300
Data managed on central file servers (in TB): 193
www.immobilien.ethz.ch
www.id.ethz.ch/index_ENt
44 ETH Zurich annual report 2008