Self-Hosted Collaboration Platform and HPC Support
Deployed a self-hosted Overleaf instance and supported Apptainer-based HPC workloads.
Overview
Researchers relied on external, closed-source tools for collaborative writing and had limited support for containerised HPC workloads.
Problem
Depending on external SaaS tools for collaborative academic writing raised data-control concerns, and HPC users needed support running containerised workloads reproducibly.
Constraints
- Had to be maintainable by a small infrastructure team
- Needed to fit within existing Proxmox/ZFS virtualisation infrastructure
Approach
Deployed and maintained a self-hosted Overleaf instance for collaborative academic writing, and provided support for Apptainer container workloads on HPC infrastructure.
Key Decisions
Self-host Overleaf rather than rely on the SaaS offering
Keeps research data and collaboration within university-controlled infrastructure.
Tech Stack
- Overleaf
- Apptainer
- Proxmox
- ZFS
Result & Impact
Gave researchers a self-hosted alternative for collaborative writing and reliable support for containerised HPC workloads.
Learnings
- Self-hosting collaborative tools is a reasonable trade-off between control and maintenance effort for a university environment