Tailored EUDAT data services: use cases
The EUDAT services in CSC’s offering are aimed for customized solutions for organizations in cases when the national shared data management services do not provide a sufficiently comprehensive solution. Typically, the data service customization has been related to the opening, sharing and publishing of research data or to the management of access rights. Tailoring is always done according to the customer’s needs.
CSC offers three EUDAT data services that can be customized for each organization: B2SHARE for publishing files and datasets and B2DROP for storing and sharing files in the cloud. B2SAFE is a data storage service suitable for large volumes of data, with automated workflows to facilitate data management.
In this blog, we will go through three examples of customized data services.
The B2SHARE service allows a thematic data publishing service to be easily implemented for a scientific community or research infrastructure. The CSC is working with the INAR infrastructure to develop an environmental science publication service. In the pilot phase, a customized service based on B2SHARE has been implemented for the ecosystem research infrastructure eLTER Finland (Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research). The plan is to make the service interoperable with the metadata service of the European eLTER community, so that research data produced in Finland will also be visible in European services.
– The aim is to combine national and international data management. It is important for us that research data produced in Finland can be found by all international eLTER network users through B2SHARE, says Jaana Bäck, Director of the Finnish eLTER network at the University of Helsinki.
CSC has delivered data management solutions based on B2SHARE and B2DROP to the University of Helsinki. The B2SHARE-based solution provides a general discipline-independent publishing channel for research data produced at the University of Helsinki, while the service built around B2DROP provides an easy way to store and share data between research teams. B2DROP also provides functionality for publishing research data on the B2SHARE service. The service is currently being tested at the University of Helsinki.
– EUDAT services were integrated with the University of Helsinki’s own group management tool using LDAP. The feature allows the University admins to manage also the EUDAT service users in their local user management tool, says Minna Harjuniemi, IT Manager at the University of Helsinki.
Turku University of Applied Sciences is introducing a customized B2DROP service to complement its data management services. This service runs on the CSC platform and is suitable for data storage and sharing. Turku UAS will define the terms of use, for example, storage space and access rights. The service is now in the deployment phase.
– B2DROP provides us with a solution for managing and sharing RDI data during projects. In particular, the possibility to share material between different organizations has been an important selection criterion for us, along with good data protection and security, says Anne-Marie Tuikka, Project Manager at Turku University of Applied Sciences.
CSC is constantly striving to develop its EUDAT services to meet the needs of its customers. CSC’s main customers for EUDAT services are Finnish universities, research institutes and research infrastructures. Tailored data services are designed to provide additional options to the common services provided by CSC, while promoting good data management practices.
As part of improving the service experience, the launch of an EUDAT customer network is planned. The aim of the Customer Network is to further develop cooperation and dialogue between EUDAT customers and CSC. The network will allow customers to share their experience of the services, influence service developments and keep up to date with new features. The network aims to be operational early next year.
Antti Pursula
The author is a development manager at CSC and head of secretariat of EUDAT consortium
Tommi Kutilainen
The author has a few decades of experience in scicomm at CSCfi and he is especially interrested in everything. Twitter: @TommiKutilainen