Research Data Management

Data lifecycle advice and service

What service is available?

Intersect offers a range of research data management services to support researchers during the data active phase of the research lifecycle.

Space.intersect.org.au is a platform developed by Intersect to support the management of research data and may be used in conjunction with Intersect’s Time.intersect.org.au computing services. The following research data management workflows and activities are supported by Space and related Intersect products/services:

1. Supporting your research collaboration using SpaceShuttle

Research has become increasingly collaborative, requiring tools to enable researchers to collaborate around data from various institutions/locations.  Intersect supports collaboration during the data active phase of research through its SpaceShuttle product.  SpaceShuttle is a storage solution that enables researchers to securely transfer, store, manage and share large amounts of active research data.  SpaceShuttle is designed for use by individual researchers or research groups wanting to share and collaborate with other researchers during the data active phase of research.

Features of SpaceShuttle include:

  • Transfer of data via the high-speed AARNet optical fibre network (with no ingress or egress charges between AARNet destinations).
  • Ability to scale to petabytes of storage.
  • Secure and controlled access to data using the researcher’s own organisational credentials.
  • Ability to connect easily to high performance and cloud computing platforms including Intersect HPC, Intersect OwnTime, Intersect NeCTAR, Amazon Web Services Compute Cloud and others.
  • Management of research data using a convenient web browser interface or, optionally, automation of workflows using scriptable command line tools.
  • Ingest of data directly from instruments and sensors.

SpaceShuttle provides a suite of tools to help share your data with collaborators, using AsperaSoft FASPTM transfer technology to achieve speeds hundreds of times faster than FTP/HTTP.  Transfer of data is secure using AES-128 encryption with the confidence that your data remains private over the wire.  Data is securely held in Tier 3 datacentre locations in Sydney with the highest levels of accredited security, availability and reliability, with two copies stored on tape.

Information about SpaceShuttle can be found here.

2. Providing a cloud platform to run your research software using SpaceLab

Many research projects involve the use of specialised software to compute, analyse or simulate data.  Computing platforms and associated data storage are required to run the software.  Intersect supports the need for specialised software close to the researcher’s data through its SpaceLab product.  SpaceLab provides an integrated platform (compute, storage, software) in the cloud.

Features of SpaceLab include:

  • Control over the size of computing resource (virtual machine) from 1 CPU, 2GB RAM and 10 GB Disk to 64 CPU, 256 GB RAM and 2,800 GB Disk.
  • External IP address providing the ability to access the virtual machine anywhere.
  • Allocation of data storage to meet research needs.
  • Pre-loaded Linux operating system.
  • Facility to load specific research software or choose from various commonly used pre-loaded packages such as Matlab and RStudio.

SpaceLab requires some knowledge of computing requirements and some Linux familiarity.  Intersect can assist researchers to use SpaceLab if required.

If you would like a more managed service which does not require prior computing knowledge or you would prefer to not manage the virtual infrastructure, Intersect also offers a managed service to deliver SpaceLab as a full service – refer Application Hosting Service.

Information about SpaceLab can be found here.

Who can access the service?

SpaceShuttle and SpaceLab are available for use by researchers from any Intersect member organisation.
For people and organisations outside the Intersect membership, please contact us at space@intersect.org.au.

How do I access the service?

To access SpaceShuttle or SpaceLab, contact the Intersect eResearch Analyst at your institution for advice on getting started or contact Intersect at space@intersect.org.au.

What costs are involved?

Information on SpaceShuttle and SpaceLab charges is available here.

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