By popular demand, the Research Data Service is pleased to announce the arrival of a brand new feature: the DataVault Outward Staging Area (DOSA), a free-of-charge benefit to DataVault depositors.
What is a staging area? Somewhere your data can be held temporarily, on the way to somewhere else. Just like a traditional staging post for stagecoaches, as shown in this engraving.
Imagine: your multi-terabyte dataset is safe-and-sound in your vault, you’ve cited it in a paper you’ve just published, and an external researcher has asked you for a copy. What will you do?
Simple: send a request to IS Helpline (or data-support@ed.ac.uk) asking us to create a DOSA folder for your data.
We’ll then use DOSA to give temporary (two months) external access to a copy of your deposit, using a Globus FTP endpoint. We’ll retrieve a copy of your data to the folder. And we’ll provide you with the Globus endpoint, which you send to the researcher. They may need to install some software to get the data. Alternatively, for datasets under 500 GB, we suggest a DataSync link will be more suitable. We set that up and provide it to you in the same way as the Globus endpoint. The difference for the end user is they can use the DataSync link (+ password) from their browser. Let us know if you have a preference for a Globus endpoint or a DataSync link (otherwise we’ll decide automatically based on the size).
Workflow: We retrieve your deposit to your DOSA folder. We provide you with either a Globus endpoint or a DataSync link, to provide to your external person who made the request.
The DOSA is part of our networked active data storage, DataStore, but separate from the other staging area we provide for users making a new deposit (‘the DataVault staging area’), for the inward route.
Since 2016 researchers have been archiving data in Edinburgh DataVault. The DOSA is available for any DataVault deposit, old or new.
DataVault Outward Staging Area (DOSA): Sharing data with an external user
Not sure you’ll remember the name of the service? Worry not! I have a mnemonic device for you: just remember that a ‘dosa’ is an Indian savoury pancake. What’s not to like?
Pauline Ward
Data Repository Operations Officer
University of Edinburgh