Research Data Storage Service

Description

The Research Data Storage Service provides researchers with on campus access to secure, resilient and redundant storage replicated in two locations for protection. One of the three service options also offers off-site backup.

The service provides 3 tiers of online data storage offering a range of features and price points

All storage is accessible from Windows, Linux and Mac OSX via the NFS protocol

The storage is accessed via the wired network and is designed to provide highly available storage capacity

Cost

The service is chargeable in advance based on the service tier, amount and duration

Charges will be made as soon as the requested storage has been delivered

Service Options

	Basic Tier	Silver Tier	Gold Tier
Snapshots Provides protection against accidental deletion or overwriting of data, allowing user to restore files from up to two weeks ago.	No	Yes1 Maximum of 2 weeks	Yes1 Maximum of 2 weeks
Off-site Backups2 For further disaster recovery protection.	No	No	Yes Maximum of 3 months
Suggested use	For research data which can be easily recreated or downloaded from another source.	For research data which is not so easy to recreate if accidentally deleted or overwritten.	For research data which is not easy to recreate, where additional recovery options are required.
Cost per TB per year	£221	£265	£409

1. Snapshots allow users to restore older versions of modified or deleted files from up to two weeks ago. This provides convenient, quick recovery from accidental deletion and a good level of data integrity for most classes of data, but won't fully protect against data loss. The number and period of snapshots retained depends on the volatility of your data (maximum of 2 weeks).

2. Backups are encrypted and stored in cloud data centres within the EU. Add information about backup policies.

Requestable Items

Requestable Item	Description	How
Assistance with costings for research grant proposals	Providing costings and justifications to be used at grant submission time.	Advice from IT Business Partner or Research Services
Allocation and configuration of storage	Setting up the requested tiered storage to allow the researcher to access from their chosen device (Windows, OSX, Linux) Once you have funding in place (either via research grant funding, or other source).	Contact IT Business Partner You will need to provide details of the storage required, duration and the account code to be charged.
User Access Management	Configure access for authorised data users	Contact IT Business Partner, referencing share name
Expansion of existing storage	Increase in the capacity of existing storage and appropriate charging	Contact IT Business Partner, referencing share name
Extension of storage term	Extend the storage agreement	Contact IT Business Partner, referencing share name
Recovery of files from off-site backup (included in the annual charge for Gold Tier only)	Recovering files from back up	Contact IT Business Partner, referencing share name

Service Limitations

Accessible on UK campuses wired network only (excluding Halls)

IT does not provide assistance in managing research data (see http://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/res/ResearchDataManagement/DataManagementPlanning/reas-DataManPlanning.aspx)

Subject to:

• Minimum subscription term of 1 month
• Minimum capacity of 0.5TB
• Minimum size increments of 0.5TB

Changing the storage tier will require a new subscription

Contiguous storage space cannot be guaranteed where storage is expanded

Please contact your IT Business Partner for advice if you need research compute services to help you analyse large datasets.

Restrictions

Storage is for research data only and is chargeable (see Service Options above).

The system is not designed for intensive processing of large volumes of data. If in doubt please contact your IT Business Partner.

IT may contact any share owners with sustained high or atypical usage to discuss their requirements and storage options. IT reserve the right to limit or throttle the service as required to maintain service levels for all users.

IT Responsibilities

Provision of storage, ensuring demands for capacity requirements are met.

Ensuring the data is highly available and protected against server room or server failure.

Customer Responsibilities

The principal researcher is responsible for following the Regulations for the Use of the University of Reading's IT Facilities and Systems when storing data on the research data storage systems.

Ensuring funding is available to cover the storage costs for the duration of the life of the research data.

Recovery of files from snapshots (Silver and Gold Tiers only).

Service Dependencies

This service depends on Estates and Facilities, who provide services essential to the functioning of the University's data centres.

Service Hours

Service Hours	The service will be available 24/7, subject to the normal at risk period
Support Hours	Support will be provided in accordance with the standard IT service desk hours
Weekly Maintenance Window	The service will be at risk during the normal IT at risk period

Service Level Targets

The Service Level Targets can be found in the generic Service Level Agreement Document details to follow.

How to Request This Service

This service is available to all University researchers. Initial use should be discussed with an IT Business Partner in the first instance.

Service Owner and Contact details

The main point of Contact	Service Desk. (ext 6262, Self Service Portal)
The Service Owner:	Academic Compute Team Manager

Escalations

The Table below shows the escalation routes for Service based issues for this Service