Business case and cost modelling for an end-to-end RDM serviceFrances Madden, Research Data and Curation ManagerDave Cobb, Project Manager

Background

3

• Research intensive university• 21 academic departments, 9,000 students,

2000 staff• Departments include Information Security,

Physics, Psychology• Large arts and humanities faculty

Royal Holloway, University of London

4

• Have a policy, need ab end-to-end RDM service• Initial investigation four months

(underestimate!)

RDM Project & deliverables

Plan Create Preserve

Overarching Service Management & Support

Planning System(improve DMPOnline)

Active Data StorageCollaboration Tools

Data CatalogueStaging storage Archive Data storage (digital & analogue)Preservation System

Business Case

6

• Funder mandates, heavily EPSRC & other Research Council funded institution

• Improve infrastructure to facilitate research excellence

• Improve research impact• Be a partner of choice

Key Drivers

7

• Business analysis• Focus group,

interviews, surveys• Market investigation• Events, networking,

presentations, Gartner reports

• Supplier engagement

• Onsite visits, webinars, events

• Guidance & consultancy• TNA, DCC, ICO,

Gartner, specialist advice

Options Appraisal

Requirements led project – uptake is key

8

• Engaged the DCC for consultancy services• Conducted funder analysis• 75% of funded research is covered by OD

requirements• Conducted DAF/CARDIO Lite survey • Circulated to all academic staff, 100+ responses

• Comparison with 2014 survey• Informed risk and cost based business case

Consultancy

Findings

42%

20%9%

14%

8%

2%1%5%

Data locations

Hard driveExternal hard driveCloud storagePhysical mediaCentral shared driveEmailCommercialOther Held

intern

ally

Projec

t or o

ther w

ebsite

Third

party

data

servic

eOthe

r0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

4540

1218

15

Deposit locations for data

10

Findings

63%

11%

10%

5%4

%3% 2% 1%

Funding sources

RCUK funding EU Gov-ernment

Charity funding OverseasOther EU British

AcademyGovernment funding (inc. NHS)

Industry

Less than 1GB

1-10GB

10-100GB

100-500GB

500GB-1TB

1-10TB

Over 10TB

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

31%

15%

22%

6%

12%

10%

3%

Data Volumes

Costs

12

• Assessed costs of delivery options for Active and Archive storage

• Received number of existing users of Cloud services

• Developed extensive business requirements for all deliverables

• Still did not know how much storage was required!

Supplier and User Engagement

13

This became this….

Less than 1GB

1-10GB

10-100GB

100-500GB

500GB-1TB

1-10TB

Over 10TB

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

31%

15%

22%

6%

12%

10%

3%

Data Volumes

14

And this….

Methodology – User types

• Decided on low, medium, high and massive categories of users

• Based on survey findings, scaled up worked out quantities of storage required across the College

Classification % of users

Example

SourcePI/Research staff

90%e N/A

Machine Generated

10%e Psychology – MRI scanner

Storage size requirementsLow (< 100GB) 60% Economics – spreadsheets; most humanities;

mathematical modellingMedium (100GB-1TB)

28% Condensed matter physics

High (1TB – 10TB)

< 9% Computer Science – data generated from algorithms

Massive (> 10TB)

< 3% Physics – data received from CERN

SensitivityGeneral 75% N/ARestricted 25% PIR – defence policy work; Earth Sciences –

commercial partnerships∟ Restricted (PII)

20% Psychology – parent & child research; Geography – video research

LocationOnline (local) 5% N/AOnline (remote) 91% N/AOffline 4% GeographyBandwidth & I/OHigh 5%e Media Arts ; Psychology – MRI scannerStandard 95%e N/A

16

• Calculated % which have external repositories available based on funding councils

• Validated against estimated output per department

• Worked with R&E and academics to determine: • Levels of personal identifiable information• Quantity of unfunded research• Collaboration requirements• Offline access requirements

Methodology – User types cont.

17

Key stats

• 15-30% Personally identifiable information

• 95% require collaboration capability

• 95% require offline or remote access

• 40% of research unfunded (based on TRAC return, compared with funding levels)

• 10% of research data produced directly from equipment

29%

42%

11%

13%

5%

No. of grants and repositories

RCUK funded - RepositoryRCUK funded - No repositoryEU FundedFunded - other (DR)Funded - other (NDR)

Methodology – Storage requirements

• Storage allocations throughout the lifecycle investigated and costed

• Investigated delivery options for archive and active

• Assessed options for different numbers of user licences

• Appraised data for archive storage – reducing data volumes

User Type Qty

Research academics 250

All research staff 750

All research staff + RCUK students

1000

All research staff & students 2100

Funded research project 240

Unfunded research project 159

All research projects 399

Methodology – Other costs

• Integrations • CRIS (Pure)• DMPOnline• Reporting tools• New applications

• Service levels • Staffing levels• Application support• Advisory service

• Project costs vs on-going costs• Allocated vs. project costs

• Cost recovery• Estimated 35% return over 4-5 year

grant lifecycle • Based on TRAC return

• Overhead cost

Findings

Balancing cost and control is a challenge

Data security work found that the perceived risks of Cloud can be mitigated and managed

Data provision as it stands is not adequate

Cloud = higher OpEx – are you a CapEX or OpEx institution?

Very time-consuming Involves a lot of people,

disparate information sources - chase these down and use them

More confidence in decisions More involvement with

stakeholders across academic and professional services departments

Use expert sources like Gartner

Recommendation/Next steps

Procure data catalogue and archive storage in this financial year, before Aug 2016

Procure active storage solution to roll out in Sept – Jan 2016

Integrate planning tool with other systems to increase knowledge of planned research activities

Develop service around the system to support it and researchers using it

Still need to… Rate card for exceptional

requirements Develop process for managing

exceptional requirements Training for admin and end

users on all new systems Plan for analogue data storage

Questions?

Frances Madden frances.madden@rhul.ac.uk @maddenfc

Dave Cobb d.cobb@rhul.ac.uk@dave_cobb