Research units are highly encouraged to store their data on the campus' Austin Disk service within the Cockrell School organizational hierarchy: \\disk.austin.utexas.edu\root\engr\research
This consistent approach has a number of individual and organizational benefits:
- Austin disk is category 1 compliant when the proper management policies are consistently applied
- Accessible via multiple platforms, Windows, LINUX, Mac
- Backups in compliance with all category 1 requirements, including off-site storage
- And, self-service restoration of deleted files is also available via a right-click
- Quotas may also be setup within the research group's folder structure to assist with disk consumption management.
- Aggregate hosting of files can help us potentially negotiate lower storage costs in the future.
- The ITG can assist with financial, quota, or other management overhead, if desired
Folder Hierarchy
We would also like to recommend the following initial folder hierarchy to facilitate collaborative activities:
- Projects
- Projects by group – access limited to project group and administrators
- Researchers (or Students)
- Individual folders for each researcher – access limited to researcher and administrators
- Shared
- Folders will depend on what shared data the group may have, for example data acquisition data, presentations, or scripts, programs or tools. Access would be for the entire research group
It is also a good idea to designate one or two people as the administrators of the folder space. These persons would have full control of the storage space. This gives them permissions to create/modify/delete folders as well as setup permissions. All others in the group would have create/modify/delete in their designated folder(s). This helps prevent folder and file sprawl at the root and helps keep data organized by project, researcher or student.
Establishing the Service
We can assist in the setup and train the folder space administrators for the research group.
To establish this service on behalf of your research center please contact the CSE Service Desk, 232-2486, and speak with Wes Sherman, he will get your account number, sponsor information and capacity of disk information that you desire.
The disk will cost $5/GB per year and you'll need to purchase at least 50 GB to start with ($250/year).
Laurie Wood will then help you configure the disk with the appropriate authorizations. Research units have full control of their folder structure, but can also leverage Laurie's teams assistance, if desired.
If you have special export controls on your data, please contact Bob Gloyd directly to see how your information should best be accommodated.