Data, cloud and computing services
Data, cloud and computing services
Monash offers a range of data and cloud solutions to meet the needs of staff. Find the best service to meet your needs.
Monash has four levels of data classification, from public to very sensitive.
Researchers can use the Digital Research Capability Catalogue (DRCC) tool to find the most appropriate data option for their project. For full technical details, consult the eResearch documentation, which provides a unified overview of all services provided and supported by Monash eResearch.
Google Drive and Google shared drive
Sensitivity: Public, Restricted, Sensitive
S Drive
Sensitivity: Public, Restricted, Sensitive, Very sensitive
Purpose: For long-term storage.
- Managed by eSolutions
- Files stored securely on Monash storage infrastructure
- Automatic snapshot with self-serve file restore option
- VPN required when offsite
- Restricted access options
- External accounts can be set up for collaborator access
M Drive (data sharing and collaboration)
Sensitivity: Public, Restricted, Sensitive, Very sensitive
Purpose: Short-term storage, designed to securely send and receive data from external collaborators.
- Managed by eSolutions
- Files stored securely on Monash storage infrastructure
- ISO 27001 Certified platform
- MFA verification
- Secure file transfers to/from external collaborators
- Restricted access options
- Encryption-at-Rest
- Desktop or browser access
- Storage or transfers above 1TB require approval from eSolutions
P Drive
Sensitivity: Very sensitive
Purpose: For storage of very sensitive data (such as PII) and long-term storage for compliance reasons.
- Access via MoVE SDE environment
- Antivirus scanning
- Auditing
- Encryption-at-Rest
RDS Market (disk storage)
Sensitivity: Public, Restricted
Purpose: Market storage (also known as Market-file) is a disk-based product designed to support research data that is accessed regularly (usually every day) by researchers.
- Managed by eResearch
- Files stored securely on Monash storage infrastructure
- Automatically backed up by the University
- Monash VPN required when off-site
- Restricted access options
- External accounts are available for collaborator access
- Market Storage Wiki
Request access: Storage allocations are made through the Data Dashboard.
RDS Vault (hybrid disk and tape storage)
Sensitivity: Public, Restricted
Purpose: Vault storage is a tape-based product designed to accommodate long-term data retention. It is best used to store data that is accessed infrequently, or backups of data that is being stored locally.
- Managed by eResearch
- Files stored securely on Monash storage infrastructure
- Automatically backed up by the University
- Monash VPN required when off-site
- Restricted access options
- External accounts are available for collaborator access
- Vault Storage Wiki
Request access: Storage allocations are made through the Data Dashboard.
RDS MURDA (archive storage)
Purpose: Archive storage, also known as the Monash University Research Data Archive (MURDA), is a managed archive service and research data repository supported by Monash eResearch.
For more information, see the Monash eResearch page on MURDA.
Monash Private Cloud (MPC)
The Monash Private Cloud (MPC) is a hosting platform available to all Monash staff. Users can request an SOE Windows or Linux environment. The MPC isn’t a self-service so researchers will need to specify their computing and storage requirements.
AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a comprehensive and widely used cloud computing platform provided by Amazon. It offers a vast array of services that cater to various computing needs, allowing businesses and individuals to access computing resources, storage, and other functionalities without the need to invest in and maintain their own physical infrastructure.The cost of this service is passed on to the customer.
AWS Secure Monash Landing Zone: A landing zone is a well-architected, multi-account AWS environment that is a starting point from which you can deploy workloads and applications. It provides a baseline to get started with multi-account architecture, identity and access management, governance, data security, network design and logging.
- Monash File Exchange: A secure managed SFTP based file/object transfer point hosted in AWS leveraging AWS Transfer Family and AWS S3.
Monash Azure Cloud Environment (MACE)
MACE is an Azure Services product designed, managed and provisioned for Monash University customers to innovate and create solutions. The cost of this service is passed on to the researcher, but it's possible to set a spend limit upfront
M3 High-performance Computing (HPC)
M3 is an HPC cluster and the third stage of MASSIVE. M3 allows researchers to process large amounts of complex data by parallelising their workloads across multiple computers.
M3 is suitable for:
- data processing (especially image processing and analysis)
- interactive visualisation (including large-scale problems requiring multiple nodes for rendering), and
- modelling and simulation (particularly for problems suited to GPU parallelisation).
To request access, contact hpc@monash.edu.
For more information, read the Monash eResearch page on M3.
Monash Research Cloud
Monash Research Cloud (previously R@CMon) provides self-service computing and storage infrastructure supporting national research with a particular focus on the Clayton precinct. The Monash Research Cloud is one of eight nodes of the National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources Research Cloud (Nectar), with capital funding provided through Nectar by the Australian Commonwealth Government.
To request access, contact rcmon-support@monash.edu.
For more information, see the Monash eResearch page on Research Cloud.
NCI
Monash eResearch, in partnership with Science and Engineering Faculties, has established a scheme at the National Computing Infrastructure (NCI) for HPC services. The allocations provide access to the NCI Gadi HPC cluster and project data storage. The resources are available quarterly to researchers and HDR students through a competitive but lightweight application process.
To learn more about the Monash NCI Open Call process and important dates, check the Monash eResearch page on NCI.
Pawsey
Monash eResearch has joined the Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre Champions Program, an advocacy and outreach initiative developed by Pawsey to engage with key members of Australia’s research community and accelerate scientific capability and discovery nationwide. One key benefit of this program is that it provides Monash researchers access to Pawsey's Fast Track Access Scheme without having to apply through the annual National Merit Allocation Scheme.
To learn more about the Fast Track Allocation Scheme and how to apply, check the Monash eResearch page on Pawsey.
DUG
Monash University researchers have access to world-class high-performance computing (HPC) resources through DUG technology. DUG offers HPC as a service (HPCaaS) – a fully supported, bare-metal compute and storage environment designed to accelerate large-scale data analysis, modelling, and simulation across disciplines.
Access to this service involves a cost. If you’re interested in learning more about the process for accessing DUG Technology, contact Monash eResearch (hpc-partners@monash.edu).
Nectar Research Cloud
Monash operates a node of the Nectar (National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources) research cloud. Nectar provides self-service computing and storage infrastructure to Australian researchers, and allows users to create VMs (Virtual Machines) which can be used to support various user-defined services. VMs can also be created and used as clusters in order to support HPC and parallel processing.
Request a project via the Nectar Dashboard
Secure Enclaves
Monash Secure Data Enclaves (SDE) is a software-defined, secure, and centralised private cloud infrastructure that aims to give Monash enterprise users and researchers a safe environment to host, process, store and analyse their sensitive data. The platform has been designed and built with security as one of its main objectives.
The platform aims to strike the right balance between achieving state-of-the-art security controls while maintaining the appropriate ease-of-use. The platform architecture and design enable the operating team to offer each workload its dedicated enclave with well-defined and monitored traffic routes to ensure that only authorised access is allowed.
The platform offers capabilities such as:
- software-defined micro-segmentation and network virtualisation
- encryption-at-rest with FIPS 140-2, Level 3 Encryption Key Management and Hardware Security Module
- full storage auditing capabilities
- advanced GPU virtualisation to support machine learning and data science workloads
- software-defined encrypted image-based backup for the hosted application with customisable retention period and frequency
- software-defined encrypted tape backup for the data hosted by the platform with customisable retention period and frequency
- advanced monitoring and real-time alerting through integration with Splunk
- automated batching and vulnerability scanning for the hosted applications
- secure long-term storage offered on the P:Drive.
Monash SeRP
Monash Secure eResearch Platform (SeRP) is a secure environment for sharing research data for collaboration and analysis, within the control and governance of the data custodian. Monash SeRP allows the Data custodian or the delegated project manager (Data Custodian) to have visibility and control over how their data is being used by other approved researchers.
Monash REDCap
REDCap is a secure, web-based application to create and manage research databases and/or participant surveys. It is developed to help researchers collect and manage sensitive data effectively and responsibly. REDCap's streamlined process for rapidly creating and designing projects offers a vast array of tools that can be tailored to virtually any data collection strategy.
REDCap provides automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to Excel and common statistical packages (SPSS, SAS, Stata, R), as well as a built-in project calendar, a scheduling module, ad hoc reporting tools, and advanced features, such as branching logic, file uploading, and calculated fields.
Data collected through REDCap will be directly and permanently stored on infrastructure located in Australia and managed by Helix. Data stored on this infrastructure is backed up daily. All traffic between the data collector’s personal device, the web server(s), the database server(s), and the file server(s) is encrypted.