Store & share data

CSC provides multiple options for storing research data while you work on it, as well as later in the data lifecycle. There are many factors that you should consider when selecting a suitable storage service, including:

the amount of data that needs to be stored,
who needs to have access to the data,
does the data contain sensitive information,
will the data be published,
does the data need to be preserved for longer time periods,
will the data be used in combination with other CSC services.

Read more about choosing a suitable storage solution in Docs CSC. If you are working with sensitive data, please see our Sensitive data services pages for more information.

Storing data during a research project

For storing data during the active phase of a research project we recommend Allas and Pukki services.

Allas is a high-capacity storage service for utilizing data in computing environments. In Allas, data is stored as static objects. Allas can be used with S3 or Swift API compatible tools. Automatic data backups are not provided.
Pukki is a Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS), suitable for most database use cases. With Pukki you can easily and effortlessly set up a database with a few clicks and manage it as a self-service, instead of manually setting up and maintaining your own database environment.

Storing data while computing

CSC’s high-performance computing environments have disk areas suitable for data storage while computing. Note that data that is not used on a weekly basis should be stored in Allas.

The cloud environments of Pouta services provide storage space that can be linked to the virtual machines running there. This allows you to build your own data servers and analysis environments, which can be made accessible online.

For more information, see the storage comparison table in Docs CSC.

Storing data after a research project

In order to store and reuse data after a research project, it must be well-documented and placed in a repository that enables reuse. We recommend opening research data in a discipline-specific repository or in a general-use service, such as Fairdata or EUDAT B2SHARE. If you cannot give access to the data itself, you can often make the metadata of the dataset open.

Only properly described datasets can be stored at CSC after a research project. There may also be more conditions for storing data. For example, Fairdata IDA requires you to describe the stored data and to keep the associated CSC project active, even after you have published the data.

Preserving data

Datasets that have long-term value for organizations or on the national level can be preserved digitally. Digital preservation offers reliable preservation of digital information for several decades or even centuries.