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New regulations and subsidies for the storage of research data

Dear colleagues,

Five years ago, the Faculty of Medicine decided to invest in two professional and secure storage solutions for research data: 1) a high-performance network attached storage (NAS) system for active research data located at Uni Dufour (with an independent back-up copy at Campus Biotech), and 2) a secure tape system for long-term storage of inactive data.

These systems were provided to avoid the high risk of data loss inherent to non-professional storage systems. The new storage systems have proven to be very reliable, fast and cost-effective, and were therefore quickly adopted by the Faculty of Medicine researchers: the 600TB NAS server is close to full capacity. However, these systems now approach the end-of-life cycle and cannot be maintained beyond summer 2020.

UNIGE “Division du système et des technologies de l'information et de la communication” (DiSTIC) runs a similar, centralized data storage framework, which is used by all other faculties. The Faculty of Medicine will adopt this centralized framework, as the DiSTIC will, as of July 1st, 2020, not run a separate system for the Faculty of Medicine. To facilitate the transition and maintain the strong support provided to research groups, the Dean has decided to substantially subsidize the new solution. A minimal financial contribution by the individual research groups is however maintained to avoid the accumulation over time of unused data.

Researchers will have access to three types of services :

1. A NAS data storage for active “hot” research data: professional servers permitting data restoration up to 6 weeks back in time, fully backed-up at a second storage site. The cost of the NAS for research groups are 40.-/TB/year (subsidy by the Dean’s Office of 35.-/TB/year). Research groups can set the quota in increments of 1TB, which can be increased or reduced. Research groups will be billed every semester.
2. A tape-based long-term storage for “cold” data: fully backed-up tape system for long-term storage of data that is rarely accessed. The data can be retrieved if necessary, but at a slower pace. The cost for tape storage for research groups are 15.-/TB/year (subsidy by the Dean’s Office of 10.-/TB/year). Research groups will be billed according to the actual use.
3. A long-term archival system: YARETA ( ), which is compatible with the FAIR principles required by the data management plans (DMPs) of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). YARETA allows archiving entire datasets associated to a given project, e.g. a publication. The archived dataset can be assigned a digital object identifier (DOI), which requires sufficient meta-data to be searchable and re-usable for the scientific community. The costs are 100.-/TB/year or 2000.-/TB/20 years (one-time upload). This last option can be covered by SNSF funds up to 10’000.-.

Due to the long-term solution provided by the DISTIC and the generous subsidy offered by the Dean’s office, the Faculty of Medicine IT Division (SIFM), which includes the CIs (“Correspondant informatique”) working within the Section of Fundamental Medicine (NEUFO, PHYME, GEDEV, PATIM and MIMOL departments), will no longer assist in the recovery of any non-professional storage solution (Synology, QNAP, etc.) that are maintained by individual groups. This new regulation will enter info force as of June 1st, 2020.

Implementation time line :
Group leaders will receive in early February an e-mail stating the current amount of stored research data. Researchers will then have until April 1st, 2020, to organize and clean up their data on the existing NAS or prepare the data migration from non-professional storage solutions. Unless indicated otherwise, the quota assigned on the new system will correspond to the volume used on April 1st , 2020 (rounded up to the next full TB).
As of April 2nd, 2020, all research data remaining on the old storage solutions will be automatically transferred to the new servers and billed accordingly, starting on July 1st, 2020. The first invoices will be sent out at the end of 2020.

For any questions, suggestions or to prepare important transfers, please consult the FAQs at the top right of this page, or contact nas-migration(at)unige.ch, or reach out to our specialists through the help line : 95064.

Cem Gabay, Dean
Patrick Meraldi, CIF President