Allas Service Description - Services for Research

Public Detailed service description

Allas is a general purpose cloud storage service intended for storing and sharing research data for the lifetime of a project. It can be used on its own or together with CSC’s other compute or cloud services. Allas is best suited for storing data that is written once and then read many times, such as storing a static or accumulating dataset that needs to be analyzed, and storing the results of such analysis for further study.

Allas provides a robust solution for data storage during active projects, but is not intended as a long-term repository beyond the end of the project. We routinely delete data after projects are closed to ensure available capacity for active projects. For publishing your datasets to be used after the project is closed, consider e.g. the IDA or PAS services.

Allas supports several mechanisms of Access Control for the data. Buckets and objects can be public or private, ACLs can be set per object or bucket, and the S3 interface supports AWS style Bucket Policies that are also enforced on the Swift interface. Unless limited by Bucket Policy, all project members have full access to all data stored for the project. Allas is suitable for storing sensitive data if the data is encrypted and access controls are configured appropriately. Allas does not include an encryption service itself – for managed encrypted storage, consider CSC’s SD Connect service.

Allas can be accessed through an API (https://a3s.fi , currently supports S3 and Swift), through several web interfaces (https://allas.csc.fi , https://pouta.csc.fi object storage , the Open OnDemand services for Puhti, Mahti and LUMI), and through a variety of graphical and command-line clients.

Certifications

None.

User content including personal data in the Service

User must evaluate whether this Service is suitable for their purpose. Please pay attention to special categories of personal data.

When CSC processes personal data in CSC’s services on behalf of the controller, we always require a personal data processing agreement. The user creates the description of processing activities in MyCSC customer portal. Data Processing Agreement: https://research.csc.fi/terms-of-use/data-processing-agreement/

The Service does not assert ownership or any intellectual property rights to users or customers organisations’ content in the services.

Client’s responsibilities

User must follow all the Terms of Use that applies using the Service

Client is also responsible for:

Backups
Encryption
Managing access to their data (Public/Private bucket, ACLs, Bucket policies)
Safely storing their access credentials
Managing the lifecycle of their data, including following of possible legally required retention periods
Storing any and all data that is needed after the project somewhere else before the project is closed
- We delete all data after the project is closed, after a 90 day grace period.
Timely requests if extra capacity is needed, especially for large capacity requests

Service producer’s responsibilities

The service producer ensures that the service is available to customers as described in the service description.

The service producer is responsible for producing and developing the Service.

Service producer

CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.

Service provider