Unlike the rest of Radboud University, researchers and students at the Science Faculty eschew the use of BigTech whenever possible. They store their data in their own data centre and faculty ICT staff are experimenting with their own cloud infrastructure.

Radboud University is struggling with its reliance on BigTech. With the current geopolitical storm, a growing number of students and staff are questioning the wisdom of holding on to contracts with big US tech companies. ‘On the ICT front, we have made ourselves completely dependent on two unpredictable autocrats,’ Professor of Cybersecurity Bart Jacobs recently told Vox.

However, one faculty is steering its own course when it comes to ICT. Although Radboud University is contractually tied to Microsoft365, the Faculty of Science is committed to open source solutions wherever possible. This type of software is based on code that is freely available and can therefore be adapted to the needs of students and staff by the Faculty of Science Computer & Communication Department staff (C&CZ).

Open standards

The open-source attitude is deeply rooted in the history of the department, explains ICT expert Bram Daams, as he stands in front of a curved monitor in an office on the ground floor of the Huygens building. His computer runs on Linux, an alternative to Microsoft’s operating software. The left side of his wide computer screen consists of the codes that he programs, on the right is the screen that users see.

‘We have a group of students and staff who are allergic to Microsoft’

‘Our ICT service was created in 1981, at a time when the University did not have a central IT service,’ says Daams. ‘It was decided at the time to use open standards as much as possible.’

This was done to protect the Faculty from so-called vendor lock-in: the idea that an organisation becomes dependent on one major software vendor such as Microsoft or Google, which often makes switching to an alternative difficult and costly. That philosophy is still alive at the Faculty today. ‘We have a group of students and staff who are allergic to Microsoft,’ says Daams.

5 petabytes

There is one thing Science Faculty researchers need not worry about: they can always access their data, even if the internet goes down or no one can access Microsoft. The reason for this is that all research data are stored on servers on the fourth floor and in the basement of the Huygens building, in the Forum, and in the Gymnasion. ‘So in that respect, we are not dependent on external parties,’ says Daams.

In total, the Faculty of Science has a huge storage capacity. This is also necessary, as Faculty researchers often produce huge data files, such as Large Language Models or microscope images with gigantic resolutions. ‘We would like to increase to 5 petabytes (1 million gigabytes, Eds.) of storage next year,’ says ICT expert Miek Gieben, who previously worked for Google. ‘Such data files are simply too large and too expensive to put in the cloud. Moreover, the University’s upload capacity cannot handle them.’

One disadvantage of having your own data centre is that it consumes a lot of energy: approximately 50 kilowatt hours, which is comparable to the energy consumption of a small residential area. ‘But if you store that data in the cloud, it might cost more energy,’ says Daams. ‘Although those data centres are more efficient and they are spread over multiple locations,’ adds Gieben.

Local cloud initiatives

In addition to its own data centre, ICT staff are experimenting with setting up a cloud infrastructure for the Faculty of Science. ‘We would like to set up a system that allows users to easily compile the services they need. Think of virtual servers, containers, websites and databases,’ says Gieben. ‘Similar to commercial cloud solutions, but running on our own servers. However, this requires expertise and time.’

ICT staff believe that both the Science Faculty’s storage and its computing facilities could in principle be used by other Radboud University faculties in future. ‘In total, our Faculty has about 5,000 ICT users, the university as a whole has six times as many,’ says Gieben. ‘That is not an insurmountable increase in scale. Physically it could be done, but of course the question is whether the University wants this.’

Daams and Gieben have an even bigger dream: they find the idea of a joint Dutch university cloud appealing. ‘If all universities pooled the funds they currently spend on Microsoft, Amazon and Google, we could easily set it up ourselves,’ Gieben says. ‘But that is not a technical problem, it is a policy issue.’

Faculty email service

Yet ICT staff also emphasise the need to be realistic when it comes to which services should be self-provided and which not. For example, the Faculty email service will soon move to a Microsoft solution, in line with the rest of the University. ‘We simply don’t have enough staff to keep our own open-source alternative up and running,’ says Daams.

‘If the University wants to become fully open source, it will have to train people internally to do this work’

But such a switch also brings a risk, says Daams. ‘It means expertise for alternative solutions will slowly dwindle. If you’ve worked at Microsoft for 10 years and at some point you want to set up your own email service again, will you remember how to do it?’

According to Gieben, fewer and fewer people really understand how ICT works. ‘They can handle the cloud just fine, but lack knowledge about the underlying systems. The generation that still learned this is now approaching 50. If the university wants to become fully open source, it will have to train people internally to do this work.’