Intersect Partnership

The University of Adelaide has partnered with Intersect to provide research support.

Space: Data storage

Intersect provides various data storage solutions to university researchers (including those who were previous members of eRSA) through various ‘Space’ products. These include DeepSpace for archived data, SpaceShuttle for active research data, and NearSpace which is optimised for high volume and archiving.

Time: Cloud computing

Intersect also provides University of Adelaide researchers (including those who were previous members of eRSA) with CloudTime virtual machines. Researchers can choose between parallel processing for maximum performance, cloud computing for horizontal scale, or dedicated hosting for domain-specific applications, as some examples.

eResearch Analyst

The University of Adelaide has a dedicated eResearch Analyst (details below) who will be primarily located on the North Terrace campus. The analyst will manage and report on the usage of compute and support researchers who use Intersect's data storage and virtual machines to troubleshoot technical issues.

Charlotte Francois - eResearch Analyst 
Division of Research & Innovation
charlotte.francois@adelaide.edu.au

Researcher Support

The eResearch Analyst can also provide support, consultancy and advice to the University of Adelaide research community to optimise research outcomes through the application of advanced IT solutions. 

Hacky Hour

Hacky hour is an informal bi-monthly meetup for researchers to discuss technology-related problems they may be facing in their research with each other. Experts will be on hand to advise on problems related to coding, data analytics, or digital tools. If you have a problem in one of those areas: bring it along and get help. Even if you don’t have any problems you want solved, come along to help solve someone else’s! Researchers from all areas are welcome.

Research-specific training

Throughout the year the analyst will coordinate and run multiple compute training sessions with a focus on research needs. These sessions will be offered to the university research community. 

Intersect’s training courses range from Introductory to Advanced, and cover concepts from Data Collection, Management, and Analysis to Software, Programming, and Advanced Computing. Click to view the upcoming training dates and registration information. The full course catalogue is available on the Intersect Training page.

University of Adelaide researchers are also permitted to attend Intersect-run courses at any of the Intersect member institutions (subject to availability). 

Custom software engineering

Intersect provides a full software engineering service that includes project managers, business analysts, software engineers, user-interface designers and testers. This service is specifically focused on building research applications across a range of disciplines, and caters for both large and small projects.

Domain areas include:

  1. Data capture and data management
  2. Analytical software
  3. Data visualisation
  4. Workflow management

As the University of Adelaide is a member of Intersect, software engineering is available to University of Adelaide researchers for a fee. For further information, please contact your eResearch Analyst (details below). 

Intersect support 

For queries regarding Intersect services, trainings or any other eResearch support, please contact: 

Charlotte Francois - eResearch Analyst 
Division of Research & Innovation
charlotte.francois@adelaide.edu.au

You can also gain assistance from the Help website (this will take you to Australian Access Federation (AAF) - Select 'University of Adelaide' and log in with your university 'a' number and password), and the Help process, as well as on Accessing shares or Virtual Machines.

Click through these tabs to read further information:

Intersect refers to things with some slightly different names to us. Here are a couple of things you may want to know about:

Space = storage. Intersect has various ‘space’ offerings. The main terms that you will come across are:

  • DeepSpace for your archived data. DeepSpace is a low-cost storage solution for researchers requiring long-term networked data storage. Three synched copies of your data are stored on tape and disk at two different locations, so you can be confident of integrity and security.
  • SpaceShuttle is a storage solution that securely transfers, stores, manages and shares large amounts of active research data. Data is read, written, copied or moved over the Internet at maximum speed using the most efficient transmission technology available. SpaceShuttle uses a combination of disk and tape with two copies stored on tape so you can be confident of its integrity. 
  • SpaceVault - SpaceVault is used in conjunction with SpaceShuttle to offer an extra level of security over your data, especially when shared with others. SpaceVault enables restoration of your data to an earlier point in time.

Time = VMs (our virtual machines). Intersect has various time offerings. Ours is under the CloudTime umbrella which offers a range of Openstack cloud deployment models including private, public, and community offerings. The main term you will come across is:

  • OwnTime - which supports several operating systems, a range of virtual configurations, and provides a large number of pre-built images that can be used as the basis for your own Virtual Machines (VMs), without having to configure the entire system.

Hosted VM - means Intersect does all the system admin such as patching and adding and removing users

Self-managed VM - means the Researcher gets "pseudo" access and needs to initiate their own patching requirements and add and remove users

Sudo - allows users to run programs with the security privileges of another user, by default the superuser

The University offers multiple self-help resources to enable you to conduct your research. Here are a few that we think may be helpful:

Phoenix training - even though you likely won't be using Phoenix with your Intersect VM's or Data, the online training may provide you with valuable transferable knowledge.

We have a Phoenix Wiki Page and Phoenix training and support.

Adapt - Access your files on any device, any place, anytime on Android, Windows, or Mac.

VPN - Did you know that you can access the University network anywhere using our Virtual Private Network (VPN)? We have guides available for Android devices, Windows, and Mac.

Storage information

We have a guide for storage options for research data (scroll down the page a little under ‘more about your storage options’).

Third party hosting - the use of cloud services entails transmitting and entrusting third parties with potentially sensitive data, and carries risks that should be carefully considered and managed. These guidelines provide a common process and a template for performing a consistent risk assessment of cloud services.