Contact

IT Support

IT can help with data and research related issues. Put in a ticket request for assistance.

Compute Cluster

SSRI maintains a small shared cluster of two virtual machines each with 32 gigs of memory. Each machine is pre-loaded with Matlab, SAS9.4, StataMp, Anaconda Python, R, ArcGIS, Gephi and MPlus 6.1. These machines have been created for jobs that either require a platform to run for long periods of time or have a large memory footprint exceeding that of a desktop or laptop. Other applications are possible to install upon review. Larger memory machines are available with an additional cost, covering larger jobs and restricted data.

Virtual machine provisioning

The SSRI team has worked closely with OIT enterprise group to create a wide range of systems. We have met the needs of groups needing small traffic web servers with custom applications all the way up to multiple large memory VMs with database components for memory bound computation. Linux and windows are within our operating scope at the desktop and server levels. We have working knowledge of the protected network space and can accommodate environments needing restricted (not sensitive ) processing. Examples have been collaborative student work areas where data can be worked on, but not moved out. Each VM can be dynamically resized with increasing or diminishing memory ( for cost reduction ) and in some case are free at the lower end of the scale.

Systems creation

SSRI IT has had a long run of being involved in custom requests that include PHP applications for data collection, API coding against Box and online resources for data collection/automation, converting large text data as a database feed and conversion content from various hosting platforms ( Drupal/apache/AWS ) into new spaces. With this broad exposure, and the ability to request compute resources, we are poised to create or consult on a wide range of solutions.

Identifying public data resources & data massage

In an increasing data centric world it has become critical for researchers to request data from providers, collect it from the field, and shape it to fit the needs of research. While our group does not provide analytics on the data we are involved with, we assist in matching and validation of new updates to current data sets, broad restructuring of existing data into more manageable formats and are experimenting with presenting largish data in the form of database feeds in the interest of providing faster access time (odbc/sql).

Code help

With our proximity to the MIDS course work, as well as our own researchers, our team has become a very loose spot to visit in working through coding ideas or project development. With the teams and systems we connect with, it has become a natural occurrence that questions will come our way. We have our own students stop by, researchers walking though the connection space, and random questions within our organization. If you have a question, maybe about an obscure library, how to think about a data type, if we cannot answer it we will know who can.

Data Hosting

We provide the hosting setup, potentially massaging of the data to make the best fit and access to the sets for incoming researchers. We have about 5 terabytes of data we host for other groups, part of this work has been just to have a spot where the data can be found, other elements have been the addition of time based slices as new data becomes available. In recent years we have taken a little more of an active role in providing a little validation when providers leave out fields or the data isn’t matching previous years. Our newest move has be to shift our flat file data into SQL, providing query based access. This shift should create a marked increase in access where the data sets are large, but only specific pieces of the data are needed, reducing seek time.

Storage

Through OIT we have access to provision large file spaces for traditional NAS access to files. These have been great for collaboration within the institution, as well as for archival purchases. As Box has becomes introduced into the research space, we are able to request large box spaces as well as provide support for secure data collection.

AV/Collaborative Instruction

SSRI has a number of physical locations in our two buildings, each setup with remote equipment ( PC/Webcam/Mic ) suitable for being the originator or consumer of Zoom/Skype/Webex/Panopto for meetings and classes. SSRI has been the site of multiple physical conferences, large virtual meetings and hybrid physical/webinar events.
Scroll to Top