Work
to roll-out a major upgrade to the UK Data Service’s Secure Lab is
underway with the aim of delivering a number of key benefits for
researchers.
Secure
Lab enables secure access to the most sensitive and confidential data in
the Service’s collection. The upgrade will see more servers added to
Secure Lab, so that each researcher will have their own server to work
with. Previously, researchers have often had to share the resources of a
single machine with other researchers.
Overall,
the processing memory in the Secure Lab will be increased
four-fold, allowing users to work on larger datasets. In addition, the
number of central processing units will double, meaning large-scale
analysis should be completed much faster.
New
software for research will also be made available as part of the
upgrade. These include Anaconda, Python, Spyder, Jupyter notebook, and
QGIS.
To implement the upgrade, the Service’s IT team need to take Secure Lab offline on Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th November. The expected release date for the improved Secure Lab service is Thursday 26th November.
According to IT Operations Manager, Will Taylor, the upgrade will bring a number of benefits for users.
He
said: “We apologise for any inconvenience caused while we take Secure
Lab offline for the upgrade but unfortunately the interruption cannot be
avoided. However, we will work around the clock to minimise any
disruption and are confident that the end result will be a dramatically
improved service, enabling researchers to interrogate larger datasets
and analyse data faster.”
Senior
Access and Support Officer, Deborah Wiltshire, added: “We’re pleased to
be able to provide a significantly improved Secure Lab experience. In
addition, our researchers asked for Python to be included in the Secure
Lab so we’re pleased that we’ve been able to extend the range of
software available.”
If you have any questions about the UK Data Service Secure Lab please contact us using our online forms.