Introduction

This user manual will guide you through the process of transferring your data collection to our storage partner SURFsara in Amsterdam, where it will be stored offline on tape.

This type of storage is especially suited for long term archival of data that does not have to be accessed regularly. It is also a way to save on storage costs, as tape is one of the cheapest storage media available. For technical reasons, tape storage is only suited for files above a size of 256 MiB.

Before you start!

Prerequisites

Currently for MUMC projects putting data offline to SURF is not possible!

In order to use the self-service "Putting collection offline" feature, you need to make sure that the feature is enabled on the parent project.

Go to your collection details page (e.g https://mdr.datahubmaastricht.nl/access/projects/P000000001/C000000001/).
Look for the "Data migrations" section and check if the button "Put collection offline" is available on the page.
If it doesn't appear, it means that the feature is not enabled for your project. There are two ways to enable it:
- If you are a data steward for this project, you can enable it yourself by following these steps:
  - Go to the project details page (e.g. https://mdr.datahubmaastricht.nl/access/projects/P000000001)
  - Click on the pencil icon at "Tape storage SURFsara"
  - A pop up window opens where you need to choose "Enabled"
  - Press "Confirm"
  - All collections in this project are now eligible to be put offline to tape.
- In all other cases you need to contact your data steward to enable it for you. To find out who your data steward is:
  - Go to the project details page (e.g. https://mdr.datahubmaastricht.nl/access/projects/P000000001)
  - The person stewarding this project is listed at the row called "Data steward"

General conditions

You must make sure that the data collection does not contain any GDPR sensitive data
You must read the UM privacy-regulations

The end result will be:

Part of your collection will be stored on tape at our storage partner SURFsara in Amsterdam
Your storage costs will be reduced

The project details page as displayed for a data steward

Pop up window where a data steward can control the tape storage feature for this project

Instructions

If you meet the requirements listed above, you can begin transfer your data collection from the DataHub infrastructure to our storage partner SURFsara in Amsterdam.

Click on the screenshots to enlarge them!

Step 1 - Open MDR

Point your browser to https://mdr.datahubmaastricht.nl/

Use the menu on the left side to login with your UM- or MUMC+ credentials.

Step 2 - Start the transfer (Putting collection offline)

Click the Access data item to expand the menu at the left side and click Projects.

This will display the list of projects that are currently accessible by you.
Then click on the Project ID (e.g P000000001) that contains the collection you want to copy.

This will display the list of collections currently present in the selected project.
Click on the collection ID (e.g C000000001) you would like to copy.

This will display the collection details page with a (meta)data overview and a listing of files and folders.

In the Data migrations section, you can click on Put collection offline.

Step 3 - Review, accept and start the data transfer

After clicking on Put collection offline in step 2, a page is displayed with more information the data transfer process that you're about to start.

Please note that only files above 256 MiB in size will be transferred to tape.

Please note that it is currently not allowed to transfer any files containing sensitive data.

When you have read all the information, please make sure the 3 boxes are checked and hit the Start transferring N file (X GiB) to initiate the process.

Step 4 - Data migration status

By pressing Start copy in step 3, you return to the collection details page and will see a new card containing the information of your transfer.

What happens now is that your data collection is being transferred from storage in Maastricht to SURFsara in Amsterdam.

Step 5 - Putting file/collection back online

When your transfer was successful, you will see that in the databrowser the file(s) over 256 MiB are now stored on arcRescSURF01 (The tape storage at SURFsara). As previously mentioned this means you cannot download those file immediately for use.

To be able to download the files, you need to bring the collection back online or bring an individual file back online.

Bring the collection back online

To bring the collection back online, click on Put collection online in the Data migrations section.

This opens a page with more information the data transfer process that you're about to start.

Make sure to carefully read the text in the description!

If you read all the information and checked all the boxes you will be able to proceed.

Press Start data transfer to initiate the process.

You can follow the progress on the Data Migrations card.

Bring a single file back online

To bring a single file back online, in the Data browser section, you can click on Bring file online.