Data Storage Agreement Information

For those that purchase storage from us, these are the terms and conditions under which we operate. Each group that purchases storage will be given a document specific to their request that must be signed by the responsible PI.

Specifications under this agreement are:

Cost The cost for providing one terabyte of storage services for a period of three years is 22.734 hours charged at the current campus PAIV rate or approximately $1,500. These services include the physical storage space, administration of the users of your storage space, hardware and software upgrades and problem fixes plus backup services (if applicable) as described below. Storage service charge for 1 terabyte: 22.734 hours (per terabyte) of a campus PAIV (2010 rate) of $65.98 per hours = $1,500. Labor rates and tasks hours will be adjusted periodically to reflect changes in campus rates and required labor.

Space Usage Duration Space will be made available for a period of three years. At that time a review will be conducted of the storage system hardware to see if it continues to meet overall reliability standards. If it does, a follow up review will be performed after an additional one year. In no case will the storage hardware be kept for longer than four years. See below. If not, the hardware will need to be upgraded and the storage user will be charged at the current storage rate. We anticipate this rate to be the same or lower than the current storage service rate (see above) although no guarantee can be made at this time. If the storage user does not or cannot pay the new storage fee they will have to make arrangements to move their data off of the storage server within a maximum of 30 days. ATS/RCT personal are available to assist you with moving your data.

Backups Tape backup of storage space purchased under this agreement is optional. The user can select, in one terabyte increments, whether their purchased storage is backed up or not. Any storage that is backed up will have a strict limit of 1,000,000 files per terabyte. Purchased storage users can move storage between backed up and not backed up (see below)* in one terabyte and 1 million file increments as their needs demand by contacting the system administrators. Occasionally, purchased storage users will be required to log out of the system in order for their requests to be completed.

Additional information related to backups and recovery of your data is:

Two versions of each file in your home directory storage are retained on our tape backup system: the most current version and the most current version preceding it. Most current is defined by the last modification date of the file. Once you delete a file you have 30 days to recover it. After 30 days no copy of a deleted file is left on the backup system.
Every effort will be made to restore lost data as quickly as possible. The amount of data, number of files, other activity on the backup system and workload of the ATS RCT Systems Group are all factors that can impact recovery time. We ask that you do not abuse this service, as the recovery procedure is disruptive to other ongoing operations.
As long as you continue to pay for your storage your data will be retained on our storage server and backup system (as long as you do not delete it). At the termination of your storage agreement with us you must remove you data within 30 days. After 30 days we will delete your data from our storage and backup systems and there is no way to recover it once this happens.

Protecting Personal Information (PI) on Hoffman2 Pursuant to UCLA Policy 404 any Personal Information (PI) data stored on the Hoffman2 Cluster file systems must be protected.

Personal Information is defined as "an individual's first name or first initial, and last name, in combination with any one or more of the following: (1) Social Security number, (2) driver???s license number or California identification card number, (3) account number, credit or debit card number, in combination with any required security code, access code, or password that would permit access to an individual???s financial account, (4) medical information, and (5) health insurance information."

Since ATS has responsibility for the Hoffman2 cluster it also has responsiblity for insuring that users of the Hoffman2 file systems understand what is required of them.

To that end we need to know if you are storing any Personal Information on the Hoffman2 Cluster. If so we strongly recommend you remove it immediately. If this is not possible then you must encrypt the data per policy guidelines. If you do decide to keep it you must inform the Director of ATS, in writing, what kind of Personal Information you have and why you must keep it on Hoffman2. If a security breach occurs and Personal Information is stolen AND it is not encrypted then YOU as the custodian of the data are liable for the exposure.

21July2011