Welcome to the ITSC
Welcome to the Information Technology Services Centre (ITSC) of the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. The ITSC is the central hub for innovative, reliable, and secure information technology services that support teaching, learning, research, and administration across the Faculty.
Committed to excellence in digital transformation, the Centre manages core IT infrastructure, online systems, and technical support services, while also contributing to undergraduate teaching and offering professional training and advisory programs.
Director
Prof Hiran H E Jayaweera
Email: director.itsc@sci.cmb.ac.lk
Deputy Director/Academic
Dr Prabhath Liyanage
Email: liyanage@maths.cmb.ac.lk
Deputy Director/Research
Dr Monika Madhavi
Email: monika@phys.cmb.ac.lk
Deputy Director/Services
Dr Sachini Amarasekara
Email: dsachini@zoology.cmb.ac.lk
Our Programs
BSc Honours IT & Management
IT Services Centre (ITSC) is a centre established in the Faculty of Science for providing, maintaining, and managing the technology infrastructure and services that support educational, research, and administrative activities of the Faculty. ITSC is governed by a Board of Management chaired by the Dean of the Faculty.
Our Objectives
>> Provide faculty wide IT services
>> Manage IT related degree programmes and courses
>> Support research activities requires computational facilities
Organization
ITSC is operated by a director under the guidance of the Dean. Three deputy directors handles, Academic, Research, and Services wings. Coordinators are appointed under the deputy directors for certain activities.
Meet the team
>> Dr Hiran H E Jayaweera/ Director
>> Dr A A Sunethra / Deputy Director/Academic
>> Dr Monika Madhavi / Deputy Director/Research
>> Dr Dr Sachni Amarasekara / Deputy Director/Services
>> Dr Pasan Fernando / Webmaster
>> Mr Deshitha Wickramarathna / Webmaster
>> Dr. Muditha Bandara / Coordinator/ FOS media
>> Dr Sunetra Abeysinghe / Coordinator/ SIS & LMS
Board of Management
Ex-officio:
>> Prof. Upul Sonnadara
>> Dr Hiran H E Jayaweera/ Director
>> Dr Dilruk Gallage/ Deputy Director/ Academic
>> Dr Monika Madhavi / Deputy Director/Research
>> Dr Dr Sachni Amarasekara/ Deputy Director/Services
Members appointed by the Faculty Board:
>> Prof. DP Dissanayake
>> Prof. SSN Perera
>> Dr Sunethra Abeysinghe
>> Dr Pasan Fernando
Research Management Committee/ HPC Management Committee
Ex-officio:
>> Dr Hiran H E Jayaweera/ Director
>> Dr Monika Madhavi / Deputy Director/Research
Members appointed by the Faculty Board:
>> Prof. DP DIssanayake
>> Prof. SSN Perera
>> Prof. IC Perera
>> Dr Pasan Fernando
>> Dr Sameera Vishwakula
The research wing of the ITSC facilitates research activities that require computation power. ITSC has its own High Performance Computing (HPC) facility and we are expanding the capabilities of the facility. The research wing is managed by Deputy Director/Research together with the research management committee of the ITSC.
High Performance Computing (HPC) Facility
Colombo High Performance Computing (HPC) Facility, supports the research at the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. Researchers who find it difficult to perform computational activities in a standard workstation are invited to review the HPC policy and submit a proposal to the HPC management committee to obtain access to the HPC facility.
At the moment, Colombo HPC facility provides parallel data processing via CPUs and GPUs. Please check available software tools and system specifications.
From stock market analysis to cancer research, complexity of scientific problems has increased considerably in recent decades and high performance computing systems with powerful processors, networks and parallel supercomputers are used worldwide to tackle problems that are very computationally or data-intensive.
As the Faculty of Science celebrates its 100 years of excellence in science, the need for computational infrastructures to enhance the support to scientific research was identified. The Faculty of Science, University of Colombo received a LKR 100 million grant under the Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) scheme which is a World Bank funded Sri Lankan government operation to support the higher education sector. Accordingly a High Performance Computing (HPC) facility was established with the funds received through the AHEAD ELTA-ELSE grant. The facility aims at enhancing computer-based learning, teaching, assessment and research among the undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Faculty of Science by providing them wide access to advanced computing facilities and shared resources. In addition, the facility will open up and promote collaborative works among national and international research groups. The facility allows the researchers to tackle scientific problems which are computationally expensive such as molecular dynamics simulations, Monte Carlo simulations, quantum mechanical calculations, advanced materials modeling, machine learning, data science and bioinformatics.
The HPC facility offer a range of services including:
- maintaining advanced computation facilities within Faculty of Science, University of Colombo
- help with scientific research applications (access to research software, software porting and optimisation, specialist software development, research portals)
- managing users (internal, external and affiliates)
- organizing training programs/workshops (e.g. for new researchers or research assistants).
System Specifications
Colombo 1 – Colombo 1 is the first ever HPC system commissioned at the ITSC
Hardware
>> CPUs: Intel Xeon Gold 6230 2.1 GHz, 20 cores, cache 27.5 MB
>> Main memory: 512 GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM
>> GPUs: NVIDIA Tesla 100 x 6 with total aggregate memory of 192 GB
>> Storage: 6 TB, SSD, non redundant
Software
>> Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04
>> Scheduler: Open PBS
Colombo 2 (Under commissioning)
Hardware
>> CPUs: Intel Xeon 1.6 GHz, 10 cores, cache 8 MB
>> Main memory: 128 GB
>> GPUs: NVIDIA Tesla 100
>> Storage: 2 TB non redundant
Software
>> Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04
>> Scheduler: Not Avaiable
Available Software Tools
Currently installed software tools in each system are listed here. If you need any additional tools to be installed, you need to specify them in the proposal.
Available software tools in Colombo 1
>> Python
>> Gromacs
>> NAMD
>> Anaconda3
>> Miniconda3
>> Quantum Espresso
Usage Policy
The usage policies are developed by the Research committee of the ITSC. The policies may amend time to time as required.
Usage and Access to the facility
The facility will be open to any permanent academic staff member affiliated to the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo hereafter termed as “internal”. The user accounts can be obtained by requesting to the HPC management committee. Requests of undergraduate and postgraduate research students should be submitted with the recommendation from the “internal” supervisor.
Scientific Collaboration and Affiliates
The facility is open for collaborative research groups which may include external researchers. Collaborators will be able to conceive research ideas, mentor research students, involve in the research design and execution of experiments, or disseminate findings in the form of scholarly works.
A collaboration should consist of at least one “internal” member from the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, and he/she is responsible to report to the faculty on any related matter requiring formal approval from the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo or any other matter deemed necessary by the Dean.
Collaborators outside the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo requiring independent access to Computing research facilities (known as ‘affiliates’ herein) will be nominated to the HPC management committee through the “internal” representative of the respective collaboration.
All scientific collaborations under the HPC facility requiring the usage of facilities at the faculty will need to be declared to the HPC management committee. All collaborative research utilizing any resource of the faculty should commit sufficient resources for the maintenance of related facilities as decided by the HPC management committee. Outcomes of each collaborative project will be monitored annually for scientific progress and financial progress.
Approval of nominations for affiliates will be at the discretion of the HPC management committee. All approved affiliates will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the ITSC, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo and will be given the right to be affiliated to the HPC facility, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. Affiliates will be subjected to annual review and upon the recommendation of the chairperson of the HPC management committee may decide to either continue or to cease such affiliations. The constitution of the ITSC, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo will be subjected to implement the above changes and will be forwarded for approval from the faculty board.
Cost
Access to the HPC facility is completely free of charge for the “internal” members (i.e. permanent academic staff members of the faculty of Science) and the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Science who are supervised by the internal members.
Postgraduate students affiliated to the Faculty of Science and supervised by an internal member will have access to the facility for a subsidized rate. The subscription will be valid for one year from the date of commencement of the project and will have to be renewed annually.
External collaborators will have to pay a subscription fee to maintain their user login to the HPC facility. The subscription needs to be renewed annually.
Scientific Output and Dissemination
Access to the HPC facility is completely free of charge for the “internal” members (i.e. permanent academic staff members of the faculty of Science) and the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Science who are supervised by the internal members.
Postgraduate students affiliated to the Faculty of Science and supervised by an internal member will have access to the facility for a subsidized rate. The subscription will be valid for one year from the date of commencement of the project and will have to be renewed annually.
External collaborators will have to pay a subscription fee to maintain their user login to the HPC facility. The subscription needs to be renewed annually.
Acknowledging the HPC facility in research outputs
You should acknowledge any contribution made by the HPC facility or support services in your publications. We suggest using the following statement:
Computational resources and services used in this work were provided by the HPC facility of the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Including HPC in Proposals
Approval from HPC management committee is not required to include general use of HPC resources in proposals. The following specifications can be used for in-kind costing:
>> Processing – $0.5 / core / hour with 8 GB RAM
>> GPU – $3 / GPU / hour
>> Storage – $3 / TB data stored / 7 days
How to get access
Please carefully review our usage policies and system specifications. Then you need to submit a proposal to the ITSC research committee for evaluation.
Download template for proposal
Accounts
Every user of the HPC needs an account to access the HPC. Academic staff of the Faculty can apply for an account in the HPC through the HPC Account Request form. In the case of a student of the faculty, the supervisor should submit the request form. The turnaround for a new account is normally 48 hours.
SSH
HPC can be accessed through the login node (10.20.15.150) through SSH, and submit jobs to the HPC. However, you are only allowed to access the login node through the university network. In case you need to access the system from outside the university, one of the options is to use a VPN (Anydesk or Teamviever will do this as well).
ssh @10.20.15.150
For windows clients, we recommend to use putty which can be downloaded from their website https://www.putty.org/.
Using Software on HPC
Gromacs
Following lines must be added to .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/gromacs/bin:$PATH”
export PATH=”/usr/local/cuda-12.0/bin:$PATH”
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=”/usr/local/cuda-12.0/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH”
NAMD
You would add the following line to the .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/NAMD_Git-2022-07-21:$PATH”
You would also add the following lines to the .bashrc file. This will help you to run NAMD jobs in multi-cores.
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/openmpi-4.1.4/bin
export PATH
anaconda3
To use these software, the following lines must be added to the .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/anaconda3/bin:$PATH”
miniconda3
To use these software, the following lines must be added to the .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/miniconda3/bin:$PATH”
Quantum Espresso
Please add the following links in your .bashshrc
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/openmpi-4.1.4/bin
export PATH
export PATH=”/usr/local/qe-7.1/bin:$PATH”
Changing your password
First SSH to the HPC server using your given credentials.
Then type “passwd”
Then you will be prompted to enter the new password and confirm the new password.
Data Storage
Since the storage capacity of the server is limited, it is recommended to backup the generated data files within 7 days after completion of the job. After 7 days, the files will be deleted to make space for the new jobs and the HPC management team will not be responsible for the loss of data.
Research Projects
All the research projects supported by the Colombo HPC system are listed here.
Colombo High Performance Computing (HPC) Facility, supports the research at the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. Researchers who find it difficult to perform computational activities in a standard workstation are invited to review the HPC policy and submit a proposal to the HPC management committee to obtain access to the HPC facility.
At the moment, Colombo HPC facility provides parallel data processing via CPUs and GPUs. Please check available software tools and system specifications.
From stock market analysis to cancer research, complexity of scientific problems has increased considerably in recent decades and high performance computing systems with powerful processors, networks and parallel supercomputers are used worldwide to tackle problems that are very computationally or data-intensive.
As the Faculty of Science celebrates its 100 years of excellence in science, the need for computational infrastructures to enhance the support to scientific research was identified. The Faculty of Science, University of Colombo received a LKR 100 million grant under the Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) scheme which is a World Bank funded Sri Lankan government operation to support the higher education sector. Accordingly a High Performance Computing (HPC) facility was established with the funds received through the AHEAD ELTA-ELSE grant. The facility aims at enhancing computer-based learning, teaching, assessment and research among the undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Faculty of Science by providing them wide access to advanced computing facilities and shared resources. In addition, the facility will open up and promote collaborative works among national and international research groups. The facility allows the researchers to tackle scientific problems which are computationally expensive such as molecular dynamics simulations, Monte Carlo simulations, quantum mechanical calculations, advanced materials modeling, machine learning, data science and bioinformatics.
The HPC facility offer a range of services including:
- maintaining advanced computation facilities within Faculty of Science, University of Colombo
- help with scientific research applications (access to research software, software porting and optimisation, specialist software development, research portals)
- managing users (internal, external and affiliates)
- organizing training programs/workshops (e.g. for new researchers or research assistants).
System Specifications
Colombo 1 – Colombo 1 is the first ever HPC system commissioned at the ITSC
Hardware
>> CPUs: Intel Xeon Gold 6230 2.1 GHz, 20 cores, cache 27.5 MB
>> Main memory: 512 GB DDR4 ECC RDIMM
>> GPUs: NVIDIA Tesla 100 x 6 with total aggregate memory of 192 GB
>> Storage: 6 TB, SSD, non redundant
Software
>> Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04
>> Scheduler: Open PBS
Colombo 2 (Under commissioning)
Hardware
>> CPUs: Intel Xeon 1.6 GHz, 10 cores, cache 8 MB
>> Main memory: 128 GB
>> GPUs: NVIDIA Tesla 100
>> Storage: 2 TB non redundant
Software
>> Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04
>> Scheduler: Not Avaiable
Colombo High Performance Computing (HPC) Facility, supports the research at the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. Researchers who find it difficult to perform computational activities in a standard workstation are invited to review the HPC policy and submit a proposal to the HPC management committee to obtain access to the HPC facility.
At the moment, Colombo HPC facility provides parallel data processing via CPUs and GPUs. Please check available software tools and system specifications.
From stock market analysis to cancer research, complexity of scientific problems has increased considerably in recent decades and high performance computing systems with powerful processors, networks and parallel supercomputers are used worldwide to tackle problems that are very computationally or data-intensive.
As the Faculty of Science celebrates its 100 years of excellence in science, the need for computational infrastructures to enhance the support to scientific research was identified. The Faculty of Science, University of Colombo received a LKR 100 million grant under the Accelerating Higher Education Expansion and Development (AHEAD) scheme which is a World Bank funded Sri Lankan government operation to support the higher education sector. Accordingly a High Performance Computing (HPC) facility was established with the funds received through the AHEAD ELTA-ELSE grant. The facility aims at enhancing computer-based learning, teaching, assessment and research among the undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Faculty of Science by providing them wide access to advanced computing facilities and shared resources. In addition, the facility will open up and promote collaborative works among national and international research groups. The facility allows the researchers to tackle scientific problems which are computationally expensive such as molecular dynamics simulations, Monte Carlo simulations, quantum mechanical calculations, advanced materials modeling, machine learning, data science and bioinformatics.
The HPC facility offer a range of services including:
- maintaining advanced computation facilities within Faculty of Science, University of Colombo
- help with scientific research applications (access to research software, software porting and optimisation, specialist software development, research portals)
- managing users (internal, external and affiliates)
- organizing training programs/workshops (e.g. for new researchers or research assistants).
Available Software Tools
Currently installed software tools in each system are listed here. If you need any additional tools to be installed, you need to specify them in the proposal.
Available software tools in Colombo 1
>> Python
>> Gromacs
>> NAMD
>> Anaconda3
>> Miniconda3
>> Quantum Espresso
Usage Policy
The usage policies are developed by the Research committee of the ITSC. The policies may amend time to time as required.
Usage and Access to the facility
The facility will be open to any permanent academic staff member affiliated to the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo hereafter termed as “internal”. The user accounts can be obtained by requesting to the HPC management committee. Requests of undergraduate and postgraduate research students should be submitted with the recommendation from the “internal” supervisor.
Scientific Collaboration and Affiliates
The facility is open for collaborative research groups which may include external researchers. Collaborators will be able to conceive research ideas, mentor research students, involve in the research design and execution of experiments, or disseminate findings in the form of scholarly works.
A collaboration should consist of at least one “internal” member from the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, and he/she is responsible to report to the faculty on any related matter requiring formal approval from the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo or any other matter deemed necessary by the Dean.
Collaborators outside the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo requiring independent access to Computing research facilities (known as ‘affiliates’ herein) will be nominated to the HPC management committee through the “internal” representative of the respective collaboration.
All scientific collaborations under the HPC facility requiring the usage of facilities at the faculty will need to be declared to the HPC management committee. All collaborative research utilizing any resource of the faculty should commit sufficient resources for the maintenance of related facilities as decided by the HPC management committee. Outcomes of each collaborative project will be monitored annually for scientific progress and financial progress.
Approval of nominations for affiliates will be at the discretion of the HPC management committee. All approved affiliates will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the ITSC, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo and will be given the right to be affiliated to the HPC facility, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. Affiliates will be subjected to annual review and upon the recommendation of the chairperson of the HPC management committee may decide to either continue or to cease such affiliations. The constitution of the ITSC, Faculty of Science, University of Colombo will be subjected to implement the above changes and will be forwarded for approval from the faculty board.
Cost
Access to the HPC facility is completely free of charge for the “internal” members (i.e. permanent academic staff members of the faculty of Science) and the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Science who are supervised by the internal members.
Postgraduate students affiliated to the Faculty of Science and supervised by an internal member will have access to the facility for a subsidized rate. The subscription will be valid for one year from the date of commencement of the project and will have to be renewed annually.
External collaborators will have to pay a subscription fee to maintain their user login to the HPC facility. The subscription needs to be renewed annually.
Scientific Output and Dissemination
Access to the HPC facility is completely free of charge for the “internal” members (i.e. permanent academic staff members of the faculty of Science) and the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Science who are supervised by the internal members.
Postgraduate students affiliated to the Faculty of Science and supervised by an internal member will have access to the facility for a subsidized rate. The subscription will be valid for one year from the date of commencement of the project and will have to be renewed annually.
External collaborators will have to pay a subscription fee to maintain their user login to the HPC facility. The subscription needs to be renewed annually.
Acknowledging the HPC facility in research outputs
You should acknowledge any contribution made by the HPC facility or support services in your publications. We suggest using the following statement:
Computational resources and services used in this work were provided by the HPC facility of the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Including HPC in Proposals
Approval from HPC management committee is not required to include general use of HPC resources in proposals. The following specifications can be used for in-kind costing:
>> Processing – $0.5 / core / hour with 8 GB RAM
>> GPU – $3 / GPU / hour
>> Storage – $3 / TB data stored / 7 days
How to get access
Please carefully review our usage policies and system specifications. Then you need to submit a proposal to the ITSC research committee for evaluation.
Download template for proposal
Accounts
Every user of the HPC needs an account to access the HPC. Academic staff of the Faculty can apply for an account in the HPC through the HPC Account Request form. In the case of a student of the faculty, the supervisor should submit the request form. The turnaround for a new account is normally 48 hours.
SSH
HPC can be accessed through the login node (10.20.15.150) through SSH, and submit jobs to the HPC. However, you are only allowed to access the login node through the university network. In case you need to access the system from outside the university, one of the options is to use a VPN (Anydesk or Teamviever will do this as well).
ssh @10.20.15.150
For windows clients, we recommend to use putty which can be downloaded from their website https://www.putty.org/.
Using Software on HPC
Gromacs
Following lines must be added to .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/gromacs/bin:$PATH”
export PATH=”/usr/local/cuda-12.0/bin:$PATH”
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=”/usr/local/cuda-12.0/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH”
NAMD
You would add the following line to the .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/NAMD_Git-2022-07-21:$PATH”
You would also add the following lines to the .bashrc file. This will help you to run NAMD jobs in multi-cores.
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/openmpi-4.1.4/bin
export PATH
anaconda3
To use these software, the following lines must be added to the .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/anaconda3/bin:$PATH”
miniconda3
To use these software, the following lines must be added to the .bashrc file.
export PATH=”/usr/local/miniconda3/bin:$PATH”
Quantum Espresso
Please add the following links in your .bashshrc
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/openmpi-4.1.4/bin
export PATH
export PATH=”/usr/local/qe-7.1/bin:$PATH”
Changing your password
First SSH to the HPC server using your given credentials.
Then type “passwd”
Then you will be prompted to enter the new password and confirm the new password.
Data Storage
Since the storage capacity of the server is limited, it is recommended to backup the generated data files within 7 days after completion of the job. After 7 days, the files will be deleted to make space for the new jobs and the HPC management team will not be responsible for the loss of data.
Research Projects
All the research projects supported by the Colombo HPC system are listed here.
ITSC offers a variety of services on its own and works as the interface for the NOC of the university to provide support for the ICT services that are offered by the university in general. The service wing of the ITSC is managed by Deputy Director/Services, and Webmasters, the SIS/LMS coordinator, the SDU coordinator, and the FOS Media coordinator coordinates the activities.
FOS Media
FOS Media is the Official Media Unit of the Faculty of Science that is responsible for managing and coordinating the faculty’s communication and media efforts including websites and social media channels. Overall, the goal of the FOS Media is to help the University share its research, expertise, achievements, and public outreach activities with the wider community and to promote the reputation and visibility of the University. Please visit the official page of FOS Media for further information.
Student services center (SSC) Auditorium & Academic Spaces
The ITSC is the official unit responsible for managing all bookings of the SSC Auditorium and multiple lecture halls for academic activities.
The SSC Auditorium is a modern, fully equipped venue designed to host a wide range of academic, cultural, and institutional events. Academic staff and students can reserve lecture halls and other academic spaces according to their specific requirements.
ITSC provides complete technological support for all events, including multimedia facilities, sound systems, projectors, presentation equipment, and other essential technical devices to ensure smooth and successful programs.
You can make a booking or schedule a pre-booking visit appointment through the following link:
ICT Accounts
NOC of the University provides an ICT getting started package for all students and staff of the university. ITSC liaise with the NOC to provide these services effectively to our students and staff.
Laboratory and AV System Maintenance
ITSC developed and manages the Student Information Systems for Undergraduates, MSc students, and Research degree students. Learning Management Systems are also coupled with Student Information Systems.
Software Development Unit (SDU)
The Software Development Unit of the Faculty was founded in 2007 with the development of the Student Information System of the University, and now it is attached to the ITSC. The main focus of the SDU is to develop Software Applications for administrative tasks.
