EVOLUTION OF THE TECHNICAL COMPUTING SERVICES AT ESTEC

At the request of the Information Services Division, TNO-TPD (the Institute for Applied Physics of the Dutch National Organization for Applied Research) has recently made an analysis of the conditions for a transition of the Technical Computing Services at ESTEC from a centralised model to a distributed computing infrastructure. This study, based on the requirements for high-performance computing in ESA in general, and within ESTEC in particular, involved interviews with many representatives of the technical and senior management at ESTEC. This article summarises the study's findings and conclusions, and it also describes the changing role of information technology in the ESTEC environment.