Attica

Owned by Lauren
Jul 31, 2024
2 min read

A cloud-hosted platform for depositing inactive research data to safely meet your retention obligations.

As a researcher, you may need to archive inactive research data to meet retention obligations (see 'How long do I need to keep my research data?'). Or as a department, you may have identified 'orphaned data' that is no longer accessed or utilised, but which still carries an obligation to be retained.

Either way, retaining your data on Attica ensures:

  • Compliance - by securely storing your inactive research data long term, Attica helps you meet any ethics considerations or regulatory requirements attending the data.

  • Security - access is restricted and the platform is more secure than desktop or USB/disk storage.

  • Safety - the platform helps to keep your data safe from physical damage, alteration, unauthorised access, deterioration or accidental loss.

  • Convenience - the University provides and maintains Attica on behalf of researchers, we support any digital file types from databases to images and test results.

  • Cost effectiveness - the platform is free for researchers and graduate research students.

Is Attica right for you?

Attica is specifically and exclusively designed for inactive research data that you no longer expect to access again, until it is deleted, but which you must continue to retain for compliance purposes (for example to meet the University Records Retention and Disposal Authority).

While we can recover Attica data in legitimate special cases, the retrieval process may take time and incur associated costs. Attica is therefore not appropriate for rolling point-in-time backups and is instead intended for datasets such as :

  • data produced by research laboratories that are no longer active

  • data generated by researchers who have departed the University

  • data that has not been accessed by anyone for multiple years

Research Computing Services (RCS) will work with you to identify, validate and upload datasets that are appropriate for Attica retention. Get in touch with us to see if Attica is right for you.

Key considerations when thinking about retaining your research data on Attica

  • You will be required to confirm an Research Computing Activity Owner (RCAO) for your data, how long it should be kept, and who should review and approve any deletion of data.

  • If the source of the data is on a versioned file system, we only ingest the latest version (unless otherwise arranged).

  • Data will be stored in AWS (Amazon Web Services) S3 DeepArchive (Melbourne), and will be automatically server-side encrypted.

  • While RCS provides the Attica infrastructure, decision-making responsibilities remain with the RCAO (and/or the governing department should the RCAO leave the University). Researchers are encouraged to contact RCS at any time should any unforeseen circumstances arise with the data (e.g. data integrity or privacy issues, legitimate cases for data reuse, etc).

  • Attica is a 'dark archive,' meaning that researchers will no longer have direct access to the data once ingested. However, RCS will provide a comprehensive 'receipt' (a .csv report, listing all files) after ingest and verification is complete. Additional reports can be provided at any time.

  • When the designated retention period concludes, RCS will notify the designated RCAO. Unless instructed otherwise, RCS will assume that the retention obligation has been fulfilled and will delete the data.

  • The platform is for data archiving rather than traditional storage (including storage of periodic backups). Where data retention on Attica is free, data retrieval may take time and incur associated costs.