RCC introduced a new file transfer service this year using a blend of industry leading technologies and it is already making research data sharing a lot easier for UQ researchers.
Dr Steffen Bollmann, a Research Fellow in UQ’s School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) and an Affiliated Research Fellow in UQ’s Centre for Advanced Imaging (CAI), once had to courier hard drives containing research data to collaborators overseas. He now uses the Globus Web App involving very fast data transfers, no courier fees and minimal risk of data loss.
“With the secure and fast data sharing enabled by Globus we can transfer large data sets both nationally and internationally, which made collaborations easier and faster,” said Steffen. “This frees up significant time to focus on data analysis rather than spending time on managing data transfers.”
Steffen and his research group use Globus to transfer human magnetic resonance imaging data from institutions in the USA and Europe to Australia and back. (See our separate case study about Steffen’s research.)
“Before Globus we transferred the data via ‘rsync’ and ‘ssh’ connections, which was quite fragile, or we had to physically courier hard drives, which also wasn’t ideal. Since the data sets are often multiple tens of gigabytes, existing cloud services are also not feasible.”
The Globus Web App is a high-speed file transfer system that enables researchers to securely move large volumes of data to other Globus-connected sites across the world efficiently and quickly, all via a web-based platform.
RCC Chief Technology Officer Jake Carroll said: “Any researcher working in any field is able to use Globus. It is an ‘opt-in’ service and is currently only available for data that is regarded as non-sensitive or not secret.
“We encourage users with large data movement problems to contact the RCC Support Desk to discuss their needs.”
UQ researchers may use their institutional credentials to log into the Globus service.
The Globus app is integrated with ‘Q’ collections in UQ’s Research Data Manager (UQ RDM) system, which is hosted by RCC in the award-winning MeDiCI data fabric. ‘Q’ collections are not Globus-enabled by default and consultation is required via the RCC Support Desk before a collection will be visible inside the Globus portal.
Globus offers a browser-based view of data and a familiar drag-and-drop interface for users, but also provides powerful command line capabilities for more advanced use cases.
The Globus deployment was enabled nationally by AARNET, who funded licensing to several sites across Australia, including UQ.
QCIF funded the Queensland hardware for Globus, including high-speed transfer nodes located offsite in Springfield’s Polaris Data Centre, to benefit its member university researchers, including those at UQ, QUT, Griffith University, USQ, JCU, CQU, USC and Bond University.
RCC staff built the local Globus service with AARNET’s assistance for network performance and optimisation.
Nationally, Globus was chosen for high-speed file transfers as it is low cost and the most ubiquitous and well-known platform for such tasks.
Globus has more than 1,500 connected institutions in about 80 countries, including many universities and research institutions in the United States.
A group at the University of Chicago developed and operates Globus as a non-profit service for use by the global research community.