New Storage Resource for Researchers Working with Sensitive Data

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Advanced Cyberinfrastructure for Education and Research (ACER) is happy to announce that the Research Data Lake storage system can now store electronic personal health information (PHI) and other types of high-risk data.

All UIC faculty members are eligible to store up the 2 terabytes (TB) of data on this system (sensitive or otherwise) at no cost for up to 5 years through the Chicago Computes program. Additional storage on this system may be purchased by the terabyte (TB) for a 5-year period, after which the storage space can be renewed or terminated. The cost of additional storage is currently $22/TB/yr, but it may increase once off-site data replication is available (expected in 2025). Faculty members may also request access for their research group members to facilitate shared access of data.

Research Data Lake is a secure and reliable, enterprise-grade system for storing and managing both structured and unstructured research data. The system is located on premises within the UIC campus and is administered by ACER. In collaboration with UIC's Chief Information Security Officer, ACER has put in place necessary security safeguards to make it easier for researchers with PHI to comply with HIPAA regulations. Research Data Lake utilizes an implementation of the Amazon S3 object protocol that makes it ideally suited for data archiving, backing up critical data, and disaster recovery. More details and ordering information can be found on the Research Data Lake webpage.

There are many additional data storage services available across UIC. Please visit the UIC Data Storage Finder to find the storage solution most appropriate to your needs. If you have any additional questions or need support, email acer@uic.edu.

Research Data Lake and Chicago Computes have been made possible by UIC leadership through the Forward Initiative Program.