Safe Haven to Cloud TRE Migration
Our new Trusted Research Environment (TRE) has been in development for a number of years and offers a range of advantages, which will benefit all HIC projects, regardless of their size. The purpose of this knowledge base article is to explain what the differences between the environments are, why we are migrating your project, how the changes will impact you and when the migration will take place. Due to the nature of research, all projects are quite different, which makes coordinating the migration quite difficult. If you have any concerns or questions, you can always reach out to the support team at HICSupport@dundee.ac.uk
What is different between the Safe Haven and the TRE?
Fundamentally, both the safe haven and the TRE do the same thing: they provide and environment where research can take place in a secure and safe environment, using data which would otherwise be too difficult to disclose and release. However, there are differences between the two, and this impacts the way you interact with the environments. When you login to the safe haven, a fresh virtual machine is provided to your session. Depending on which security groups you are assigned to, different software packages are attached to your environment. This allowed us to manage software licenses, and allowed a researcher the convenience of switching between versions of software packages, without causing conflicts. When you log off, the virtual machine is destroyed and a new one is provisioned in its place, waiting for a new user to login.
Within our Cloud TRE, the researcher provisions their own environment (we often call them workspaces) from a range of available configurations. This allows a researcher to make a choice about whether they want to use an Ubuntu environment or a Windows environment, for example. For the duration of your project, the workspace is provisioned only to you. This means you can make changes to the configuration which last for the length of the project, such as your preferred layout for Matlab panels. This also means you are able to install your own software. We provide secure access to conda-forge and CRAN, via an automated scanning proxy.
Finally, the projects we took on with our on-premises safe haven were limited to the compute resources we had physically purchased. The migration to Cloud TRE enables far greater compute capability for projects that need it.
When will the migration take place?
Our migration will be broken into two stages:
A full migration test between the 5th and 9th of June - this will not impact your ability to work using the existing or new environment.
The full migration between 10th and 14th of July. During this time, the on-prem Safe Haven will not be accessible. This is to ensure files are synchronised consistently and to avoid interfering with your work.
Communications will be sent out prior to this to ensure all our users are aware of what is happening.
We are aware that there may be a few cases where you are intending to submit, for example, a conference paper or poster close to this time. If this is the case, please ask for a delayed migration with details of the conference you are submitting to, the date the submission will be made and what your concerns are with the migration.
How will my environment be different?
Our TRE provides users with a similar compute environment to what they already have - our new virtual machines offer better performance and the ability to install software yourself from approved sources (e.g. conda-forge and R CRAN). As a user, you create and manage your own environment within the TRE - we have detailed steps on how to setup your workspace here https://hicservices.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/createpage.action?spaceKey=HKB&title=How%20to%20create%20a%20workspace%20in%20Cloud%20TRE&linkCreation=true&fromPageId=1802404
Other aspects, such as where and how drives are mounted, will also change. The P and Z drives have been replaced with directories available on the D drive. To ease your transition to the new TRE, a migration report will be placed in these directories, listing files which have hardcoded paths, or the address of our old SQL server.
What is the process of migration?
We will first perform a test migration to a separate instance of the TRE - from here, we will verify that analytical scripts still work as intended and nothing unexpected happens. Assuming the test migration goes well, we will perform the actual migration during the week starting 10th of July. During this time, we will disable all accounts to prevent access to the existing Safe Haven. This will allow us to migrate the huge number of project and user files with confidence, knowing that the old copy will not be modified after migration.
During this time, databases will also be migrated. Not all projects have an SQL database, but some do. The transfer of these will be automated, but permissions will be set manually. While we will endeavour to keep the permissions the same, there may be cases where you lose access to a database. If this happens, please drop an email letting us know your project number and the name of the database which you formerly had access to. It’s also worth noting that some database names may have changed - this is with the intent of ensuring a consistent naming format across all databases.
Some of the software I need is not available?
Instead of manually provisioning software to each user on an ad-hoc basis, we have instead endeavoured to create more generic workspace types. These fall into the categories of “UoD Staff/Student” and “UoD Externals”. Where we are able, within the terms of our license agreements, we have made software available. As far as companies are concerned, an academic license may be used by bonafide members of a university where research output primarily benefits the license holder. While you may also be an academic, working in another university, some of our academic licensed software should not be used by you. We make available commercial licensed software where possible.
If you are missing a piece of software, you may require a separate workspace image built for you, which includes that software. For this, please email HICSupport@dundee.ac.uk with your project number and the software required.