Overview
The Research Data Ecosystem (RDE) includes a tape archival service to meet research data retention requirements.
Detailed Information
The ITRSS Tape Archive solution is to satisfy researchers retention requirements for data no longer actively in use following the end of a research effort or project. Once written to tape, the data can be recovered back to RDE storage, however such requests should be ad hoc or emergency requests rather than routine recovery for further processing.
It’s important to note this is a point in time archive rather than reoccurring backups.
The cost associated with using the RDE tape archive is based solely on the cost of media and is per-TB for short term data kept in inside the tape library for 1-3 years or per-tape for tapes sent offsite for long term retention up to 10 years. Charges are flat onetime costs and you have the option to do both a short term in-library copy, and a longer-term offsite copy, or one or the other, providing flexibility.
To utilize the tape archive functionality that RSS has setup, the data to be archived will need to be copied to RDE storage if it does not exist there already. This would require the following steps:
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Submit a RDE storage request if the data resides locally and a RDE share is not already available to the researcher: RSS Account Request Form
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Create an archive folder or folders in the relevant RDE storage share to hold the data you would like to archive. The folder(s) can be named to signify the contents, but we ask that the name includes _archive at then end. For example, something akin to: labname_projectx_archive_2025.
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Copy the contents to be archived to the newly created archive folder(s) within the RDE storage share.
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Submit a RDE tape Archive request: https://missouri.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5o0NoDafJNzXnRY
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Once the tape archive jobs are completed, ITRSS will notify you and send you a Archive job report after which you can delete the contents of the archive folder.
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We request that subsequent archive jobs be added to a separate folder or the initial folder renamed to something that signifies the time of archive for easier retrieval *_archive2024, *archive2025, etc.
Recovery
Once the data is written to tape it can be recovered if required, via a ticket submitted to itrss-support@umsystem.edu the turnaround will depend on if the data is offsite or within the library or stored with records management, and the amount of data that is requested to be restored.
For Additional Assistance
For additional assistance, contact itrss-support@umsystem.edu