Various options are available to UF faculty for gaining access, obtaining licenses, and executing various software applications in order to conduct in University business, each with special features to meet different use cases. Faculty may use as many of these options as necessary in the course of conducting their business. It is important to consider several factors in the selection of the storage type to be used (See Table below).
- The type of data that is being accessed (restricted, sensitive, open) – Faculty must be aware of the different data types, the policies, and responsibilities on the use the data. For example, data that contains Personal Identifiable information (PII) will require appropriate level of security, which is only provided when the software application is run on certain systems designed and managed for restricted data.
- The volume of data processed and compute power – Some application environments are designed for convenient use of applications on problems that require limited amount of data and compute capacity, primarily for short, interactive computations, other are optimized for long-running, complex computations on large data sets.
- Application type – Environments are designed and optimized for different types of applications: Operating system (Windows, Linux), different visualization, large memory, campus-licensed software, open-source software, software development.
- Cost – Some application environments are provided by the University at no cost to the faculty. Others, although subsidized, will require a fee for use or purchase of compute and storage capacity or software licenses. Fees generally apply to high-performance, high-capacity, and high-security systems.
- Management convenience – Environments are managed by UFIT staff. Some environments only offer a fixed slate of software, others can be customized at faculty request to run special software with the license cost, if applicable, paid by the faculty member, still others allow authorized developers to completely manage the software application.
Different options are listed in the table below:
| Option | Data Type & Security | Data Volume | Compute Power | Application Type | Cost | Management Convenience |
| Desktop and laptop | Only for desktops in HSC | Limited by hardware | Limited by hardware, interactive and long computation | Any application supported by hardware and operating system | College, Department for hardware, Fee for special license | Managed by UFIT staff |
| UFApps for students | No restricted data | Homework size, limited by policy | Homework problem-size interactive computation, limited by policy | Windows applications with campus license | Free | Managed by UFIT staff |
| UFApps for faculty | No restricted data | Homework size, limited by policy | Homework problem-size interactive computation, limited by policy | Windows applications with campus license | Free | Managed by UFIT staff |
| HiPerGator | No restricted data | Project-sized, limited by investment | Limited by investment, interactive and long computation | Linux applications, campus, open, licensed, self-developed | Fee for hardware and for special licenses | System managed by UFIT staff, self-developed applications self-managed |
| HiPerGator-RV | Restricted data | Project-sized, limited by investment | Limited by investment, interactive and long computation | Windows and Linux applications, campus, open, licensed, self-developed | Fee for hardware and for special licenses | Managed by UFIT staff, some application managed by authorized developers |