Research Database Complex (RDC) usage policies

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Accounts

Access to Indiana University's Research Database Complex (RDC) is provided to all IU graduate students, faculty, and staff. Access is also provided to undergraduate students and non-IU collaborators, if they have IU faculty sponsors.

The RDC is strictly devoted to supporting research. The RDC is not an instructional, classroom environment. If you are not doing research and wish to use a database, such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server, see Database and web server access for instruction.

To obtain a database login on the RDC, you must first visit the Account Management Service (AMS) and request an account on rdc.uits.iu.edu:

Visit the AMS page.
Select Manage my IU computing accounts.
If you are prompted to log into the Central Authentication Service (CAS), enter your Network ID. If not, skip to the next step.
Click create more accounts.
Click the radio button next to Research Database Complex (RDC), and then click Create Account. You will receive a confirmation email message once your account is created.

Once you receive your confirmation email message, to complete the process, you must request a database login. The confirmation email message will direct you to the online RDC Database and Web Services Account Application. Once your database login has been created, you will receive another confirmation email message with your login and information about connecting to your database.

By submitting the RDC and Web Services Account Application, you will be affirming that:

You understand the database is to be used only for research purposes.
You will acknowledge use of IU's high performance systems in publications resulting from your research.
You will provide periodic listings of citations of those publications upon request.

Database group accounts

Database group accounts, where a username is shared by more than one researcher, are available on the RDC. You will be able to indicate that you want a database group account on the RDC and Web Services Account Application.

If you request a database group account:

You must first have an IU Network ID for your group or department.
You will be considered the responsible party for the group database account.
You will be asked to provide a list of the Network ID usernames of those who will be using the database group account.
You are responsible for communicating with the users of your group database account regarding system downtime and other information.

For more information about IU group accounts, see Managing your IU group or departmental accounts.

Database security

HIPAA

Many of the technology services provided by the UITS Advanced IT Core, Research Technologies, and Enterprise Infrastructure divisions are formally aligned with the federal Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). See UITS AITC Services Now Aligned with HIPAA.

Passwords

Once your RDC Database and Web Services Account Application is processed, you will receive a confirmation email message that describes how to access your Oracle database and how to reset your initial database password. Your initial database password will be sent under separate cover as a second email message.

It is important to employ methods that do not transmit passwords across the Internet in plain-text format. If you use SQL*Plus to access an Oracle database, invoke it without the password. The following example shows how to connect to Oracle from rdc.uits.iu.edu:

doe@RDC:~> sqlplus joeuser@iugp.iu.edu

Provide the password when prompted:

To connect to MySQL from rdc.uits.iu.edu, you would enter:

doe@RDC: $mysql --defaults-file=/N/u/<username>/Libra/.my.cnf -u root -p

Replace username with your username. When prompted, enter your password.

Note: The name Libra in the command above reflects the fact that the RDC used to be part of the Libra cluster, which UITS retired in summer 2009.

Using Web Services

In addition to providing a home for research databases and data-intensive applications, the RDC also provides an environment for database-driven web applications with a research focus. For more, see Web Services on the IU Research Database Complex.

Responsibilities

You are responsible for acknowledging use of IU's high performance systems in publications resulting from your research, and providing periodic listings of citations of those publications upon request. For more information, see the Research Technologies Division's Grants & Economic Impact page.

Unless you have requested RDC database consulting services, you are also responsible for:

Creating and managing your schema objects (e.g., tables, views, procedures, triggers, and schema privileges)
Changing datatypes
Any data processes, such as data imports, deletes, modifications, transformations, and retrievals
Creating and maintaining copies of scripts
Emailing the High Performance Systems (HPS) group about changes in space or database administration, or if you no longer need access to the research database
Adapting your schema and data as required during system and database upgrades
Adapting client applications and tools to system and database versions

RDC database administrators are responsible for:

Backing up the database
Managing space allocation
Managing database and tablespace creation
Monitoring and reporting database performance
Monitoring and reporting invalid schema objects
Installing database and system upgrades and patches

Database backup and recovery

Incremental backups of the RDC databases are done at 3:40am Sunday-Friday. A full backup is done at 2:08am every Saturday. Backups are retained for 30 days. In the event of system failure, research databases can be restored to the point of the last good backup, which is usually from that morning. Data recovery for individual accounts is not guaranteed if data loss is the result of user error.

Recovery of a table is typically not part of the database recovery process. Dropped tables can often be recovered using Oracle's recyclebin feature; see How do I recover an Oracle database table with recyclebin?

Scheduled downtime

The RDC maintenance window is the first Tuesday of each month, 8am-5pm. If downtime is necessary during this window, or at other times, an announcement will be emailed to the RDC-L LISTSERV list and posted on both the RDC Message of the Day page and the RDC Scheduled Downtime page.

Disk space for data loading and other applications

If you need space on the RDC for staging data, or for data-related packages and applications, email the HPS group, which will evaluate requests on a case-by-case basis.

Mail usage

Production mail service is not provided on the RDC.

Reporting problems

Support staff are available from approximately 8am-5pm Monday-Friday. Email the HPS group to report problems with the RDC. Be sure to include:

The name of the database server to which you were connecting
A description of what you were trying to do
A description of the problem
The name and version of the tool you were using to connect to the Oracle database server
Your computer's operating system
The error message number and text, if applicable
The time the problem occurred

Questions and comments

The policies described in this document were established with the goal of providing a stable, powerful and efficient research computing environment for IU graduate students, faculty, and staff. UITS welcomes any questions or comments about these policies; email the HPS group.

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Last modified on June 30, 2009.