High-Level System Architecture

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Our high-level architecture for our Enclave in the Cloud starts with a researcher who is interested in using restricted-access data.

Step #1: The researcher uses ICPSR's contracting portal (which is nearing completion) to submit a request for access. This portal pulls together information from the researcher (who will be using the data, what's the research plan, institutional approval) and information from the dataset (licensing terms, data protection requirements).

Step #2: ICPSR reviews the application, and if everything is in order, approves access to the data.

Step #3: The researcher uses a (yet to be built) portal to configure choices about access: platform (Linux or Windows), required statistical software, etc. This portal also pulls in requirements from the contracting system which may influence available options.

Step #4: ICPSR uses this configuration as a template to a (yet to be built) utility that launches a virtual machine in the cloud. This system - an Analytic Computing Instance - contains all of data and software that the researcher or research team will need, and is protected by firewalls and host-level security to prevent unauthorized access.

Step #5: The researchers download a copy of the Citrix client (if the ACI platform is Windows). This is the tool they will (likely) need to use to login, and which can restrict functions such as cut and paste between the ACI and the local desktop. We'd like to make this download and install as easy as downloading Acrobat Reader.

Step #6: Research happens, and while it is happening....

Step #7: ICPSR monitors both the cloud provider and the ACI for performance and security. Some of the tools we'll use for this already exist because ICPSR uses Amazon's cloud for several extant portals and systems.

Step #8: The research has concluded and ICPSR destroys the ACI in a secure manner such that no trace of the research or the data lingers in the cloud.

Putting Confidential Data in the Clouds

This blog is designed to chronicle progress on a new project at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research funded by the National Institutes of Health, Office of the Director through the Challenge Grant Program. The primary goal of the grant is to test whether confidential data, that is data distributed under license or contract, can be effectively and safely disseminated via the computing cloud. Currently data licenses and contracts put the burden of securing data files on the user. This often involves elaborate data security plans that may involve purchasing new technology or securing existing networks and machinery. This grant is to test whether we can dynamically configure temporary computing environments in the Cloud that will provider users with a secure environment in which to analyze confidential data. We will be building both the application that provisions this analytic instance and the web interface to help users navigate it. The experimental part of this project is to test cloud security and analyst's reaction to more distant analytic environments where they have less control. We have partners in this endeavor to help us recruit users to test the applications we build. They are at the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey.

This is the first day of the project!