Secure Research Environment (SRE)

The Secure Research Environment (SRE) is a project-specific, collaborative virtual platform (hosted on-premises) for the secure storage and analysis of sensitive research data. It supports controlled access, as well as regulated data import and export, and includes compute and software capabilities.

It is intended to help researchers meet their legal, contractual, and ethical obligations when working with sensitive data (see Data classification standard).

Request a consultation to learn more about the capabilities of an SRE and cost-recovery pricing.

• University-approved system for sensitive data
• Aligned with university security standards
• On-premises virtual platform for secure collaboration and analysis
• Project data is encrypted
• Auditable data ingress, egress, and access
• Role-based controlled access and rights based on project needs

• Microsoft Windows Server and Linux Operating Systems
• Standard and tailored compute options (see below)
• Standard list of applications with the ability to add specific features upon request (see below)
• Project environments are separated from each other
• Access requires two-factor authentication
• Secure access via web browser
• Copy-and-paste from a project is not possible

• No internet access from within the environment
• Software libraries, packages and modules can only be added by the SRE team
• Not intended to store research data for long-term archiving

Standard software available to be installed

• R
• R-Studio
• Python
• Common Python and R Libraries (list available on request)
• SAS
• SPSS
• Matlab
• Microsoft Office (Windows only)
• Libre Office (Linux)

Other applications maybe be installed on request depending on licensing restrictions.

• Indicative SRE options and pricing.

Step 1: Request or consultation

• Needs and costs analysis and support for grant proposal or ethics application

Step 2: Training and documentation

• Working with sensitive data training
• Using SRE training
• Documenting the project
• Providing resources to project members

Step 3: Project deployment

• Set up SRE project templates
• Arrange specific software licensing requirements
• Deploy SRE virtual machines
• Load data
• Set up project and role-based access

Step 4: Maintenance and support

• Updates to virtual machines
• Project SRE user support
• Monitoring and logging
• Maintain SRE backend and portal
• Annual review

Step 5: Project completion

• Review storage requirements
• Archive project data
• Archive project

We aim to respond to requests within five working days. Users engaging with these services will need to agree to the eResearch services terms and conditions.

Research Data Support Services
Email: researchdata@auckland.ac.nz

Yvette Wharton
eResearch Solutions Lead, Centre for eResearch
Email: y.wharton@auckland.ac.nz