What is the cost?
The cost has not been determined yet. The cost model will be similar to the way other systems operated by Research Computing are sold: via investments into storage and computing resources by UF faculty sponsors.
Who can use it?
All faculty of the University of Florida and the members of their research groups as well as collaborators at other institutions are allowed to use the system. All users must pass the required training.
What are the requirements to use it?
To use HiPerGator-RV for working with ePHI you must have taken the HIPAA general training offered through myTraining. Then you must take the HiPerGator-RV introductory training from Research Computing.
Can students use it?
Yes, graduate students can use it for research and authorized students can use it as part of any registered course. Students must satisfy the same training requirements as other researchers before they will be allowed to use HiPerGator-RV.
Can remote collaborators use it?
Yes, as long as they can show they have the required permission to work with the data they want to access as part of the collaboration. A UF faculty member needs to be the sponsor of the collaboration.
Why build a special system?
The promise of data analytics leads to researchers collecting and wanting to analyze ever larger data sets. Standalone workstations are no longer sufficiently large, powerful, and secure enough to hold and analyze the data. As the data sets grow the risk of data exposure increases as does the liability to the university. Hence, a shared resource in a secure data center managed by staff focused on operating the system increases efficiency and reduces risk, benefitting the researchers, their sponsors, and the university.
How does HiPerGator-RV work with UFNet2 Network Environments?
UFIT Network Services and UFHealth IT have deployed several virtual network environments to offer more flexibility on the level of security offered to users and computers independent of the physical boundaries imposed by buildings and offices. HiPerGator-RV can be accessed from any of UF’s network environments. All traffic in and out of HiPerGator-RV is encrypted as it traverses any network. Client computers cannot directly download data to the system or mount HiPerGator-RV storage as a network share. All data is managed with HiPerGator-RV from the virtual machines running within the secured environment.
Can HiPerGator-RV be used for de-identified data?
Yes. HiPerGator-RV is designed to handle ePHI, which is identifiable data. Therefore it can certainly handle de-identified data.
Can it be used for other restricted data?
ePHI is supported and authorized first. Other forms of data will be approved later. The technology does not change, only additional audits are needed to be performed. HiPerGator-RV will be improved to meet the requirements to pass these audits.