MetaCentrum was established in 1996 and has been an integral part of the CESNET association's activities since 1999. Since its inception, it has focused on building the national Grid and integrating it with related international initiatives.
Since June 2009, CESNET—through MetaCentrum—has served as the Czech National Grid Infrastructure (NGI), the officially recognized national component of the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI). Currently, MetaCentrum is part of the e-INFRA CZ research infrastructure, a collaborative project between three national e-infrastructures:
CESNET
CERIT-SC
IT4Innovations
The goal of MetaCentrum is to support the development of Research and Development (R&D) in the Czech Republic by maintaining a national grid infrastructure. This infrastructure connects research teams and institutions across various regions, linking them to the international research environment. It integrates both existing and newly acquired computing and storage resources of the Czech academic community.
MetaCentrum provides powerful tools for computation and data processing suitable for a wide range of users—from individual students and researchers to large-scale scientific teams.
Capacities: High-performance computing (HPC) and storage capacities, specialized hardware, software, and network infrastructure.
Integration: Geographically distributed facilities are closely integrated with CESNET Data Storage services for long-term data storage, backup, and archiving.
Software & Licenses: We coordinate the purchase of specialized, high-cost software and provide centralized license management.
User Interfaces: Friendly graphical interfaces such as OnDemand, Galaxy, and Rancher are available to facilitate data analysis.
Provided Services (with a MetaCentrum account):
MetaCentrum Grid
MetaCentrum Cloud
Kubernetes
SensitiveCloud (for sensitive data)
AI chat, LLM, and API
MetaCentrum pools resources from various institutions, including:
CESNET (Prague, Brno)
CERIT-SC (Masaryk University)
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Institute of Physics, Institute of Botany, Institute of Experimental Botany)
Universities: Masaryk University, CTU (Faculty of Civil Engineering), Charles University (Faculty of Science), Technical University of Liberec, University of West Bohemia.
Specialized Projects: ELIXIR, IT4I.
MetaVO membership is free for researchers and students of academic institutions in the Czech Republic, the members of the CESNET association.
Benefits