The Compute and Data Services Alliance for Research (CDSA) will be piloting a new data storage service, the Duke Data Attic, on the established FAST Research Storage Services this Fall. The Duke Data Attic is a low cost, easy to use storage archive system for electronic data generated from research activities, intended to improve support and streamline access to data archiving services. It is an un-curated, flexible place to store and share infrequently used data or data that may be reused.
Highlights of this service include:
• Free entitlement- for all faculty and PhD students, with affordable options to add storage
• Rapid support response – OIT staff are there quickly to support users needing assistance
• Flexible and easy to use – web-based interface for ease of data uploads and downloads. Easily extendable for large/complex data transfers, while allowing external sharing with collaborators
• Submitting data is a breeze – easy self-service submission process for long-term storage with built-in reporting of centralized resources
• Easy migration process – to the Research Data Repository at the conclusion of research projects
The Duke Data Attic is directly supported by the FAST-Research Storage (NSF OAC: 2232810, PI Charley Kneifel) $500,000 award which developed a shared research storage system based on open-source software (CEPH) and commodity data center hardware to provide a flexible, high-performance, cost-effective, tiered data storage system. Initial start-up for the pilot is granted from this storage.
Using this storage along with Globus, a researcher focused data transfer tool from University of Chicago, and Object storage on Ceph, we expect to have:
• Easy transfers in and out of storage
• Extensibility for large / complex data transfers (CLI, creation of automated flows for data packaging using Suitcase.ctl and sharing)
• And an opportunity to explore auto tiering to cloud to further reduce costs for cold data
The CDSA is excited to launch the pilot of the Duke Data Attic in the Fall of 2024 with a select group of use-case studies.
The CDSA is a dynamic faculty-driven collaboration among the Office of Information Technology, the Duke University Libraries, and the Office for Research & Innovation. The CDSA supports the increasingly complex computing and data service needs of faculty, staff and students. For more information, please visit: Compute and Data Services Alliance
A video demonstration of the Duke Data Attic is available here: Duke Data Attic Demo
