Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Who is the service for and what are the costs involved?
SANReN beneficiaries: This service is currently offered at zero-cost to SANReN beneficiary institutions. It is for researchers/scientists/projects of Beneficiary Institutions who need to transfer big data sets to/from one or more external sources from/to their institutions or NICIS resources (CHPC (compute) and DIRISA (storage)) as Users of this Service.
Non-SANReN beneficiaries: These resources can be made available for use to non-SANReN beneficiaries at a cost. This will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Am I a SANReN beneficiary?
If you have a current association with a South African university or research council you are likely a SANReN beneficiary. A SANReN system administrator will confirm this on request for the service
I have some data to move around. How can I get involved as a user of the SANReN Data Transfer Pilot?
Complete the survey and email pert@sanren.ac.za for more information.
Where can I get the SANReN Data Transfer Service Terms and Conditions Agreement?
Send an email to pert@sanren.ac.za.
Before access to the Data Transfer Nodes is granted, an agreement must be signed individually by each user of the pilot service and
The Terms and Conditions document states that a user must apply appropriate security best practices to secure their accounts. What guidelines can I use?
Keep your passwords and private SSH key safe and confidential
Secure any data containing personal information that is being transferred by the service using generally accepted encryption mechanisms such as, anonymisation, pseudonymisation or a suitable alternative.
Do not solely rely on the security provided by the Service.
What tools are available for me to transfer my data between the Data Transfer nodes and my sites?
We currently using a trial version of Globus software on our Data Transfer Nodes. A guide to help to transfer a file on globus is available.
What security is provided by the service? The Data Transfer node that I am transferring my dataset to sits outside my campus firewall. Is this safe?
Security on our Data Transfer nodes is implemented through the use of ssh key authentication only access.
I would like to learn more about data transfer best practices. Where can I find more information about networking concepts and architecture that could help me move around my datasets faster?
Information is available from ESnet.
For queries and more information please contact pert@sanren.ac.za
An extensive knowledgebase is available at http://fasterdata.es.net/