CHICAGO, September 8, 2022 — As the volume of data explodes, and gigabyte and terabyte data sets become the new norm, effective research data management tools become a necessity for today’s researchers. Globus, a non-profit service run by the University of Chicago, delivers a service and platform to do just that. Globus achieves sustainability via a hybrid free and subscription-based model whose primary goal is to maximize the value delivered to science, and provides positive returns to scale as a result of a growing subscriber base.
New subscribers in 2022 come from a wide variety of industries including higher education, national labs, research institutions, healthcare, non-profit, and commercial enterprise. Australia’s Academic and Research Network (AARNet), UC Riverside, University of Kentucky, and the University of Cincinnati are just a few of the organizations who subscribed over the past year.
New subscribers appreciate the many benefits that a subscription has to offer. For example, the University of Kentucky has been using Globus Connect Server for free as part of an HPC clusters data management workflow for several years, but several features in Globus subscriptions including file sharing, HTTPS Support, and the Data Automation service with Globus flows were needed, and as a result the University signed up for a Globus subscription. “Given our new university-wide license we envision opening up multiple endpoints/data collections across our campus, ” states Bhushan Chitre, research cyberinfrastructure architect . “We have already implemented such an endpoint for Gluck Equine Research Center and the Globus data sharing feature has already helped the nationwide community of Equine Genomics Groups.”
Simon Linwood, the chief information officer at UC Riverside, describes the Globus service as “an elegant solution to balance the needs of global data collaboration, elevated security requirements and instant scalability.”
Last year Globus added support for the Globus for Microsoft OneDrive and Azure Blob Storage premium connectors. The latest area of development has been in the area of automation: Globus timers automate scheduled and recurring transfers, and the Globus Flows service enables reliable automation of complex tasks at scale. These new automation functionality—accessible via the Globus web app and RESTful APIs—have been particularly useful for researchers who routinely need to rapidly transfer, share and analyze large data sets coming off of instruments that are used in areas of research such as Cryo-EM or X-ray imaging.
The Globus platform service has grown over the last decade to over 300,000 registered users, and transfers on average over one petabyte of data on a daily basis. More than 1,600 organizations in over 80 countries run Globus servers, and Globus supports over 1,500 Identity providers.
“Our valued subscribers enable us to grow and sustain the Globus service and support our user base,” says Rachana Ananthakrishnan, Globus executive director. “We appreciate their support and will continue to enhance our service in order to further accelerate scientific research and discovery. With friction-free data management researchers can focus on their core mission, scientific research, and not worry about the many data management hurdles that often slow their research progress.”
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About Globus
Globus is a platform for research data management, used by leading non-profit and commercial research organizations, national laboratories, and government facilities worldwide. Operated by the University of Chicago, the Globus service enables secure, reliable file transfer, sharing, and data management automation throughout the research lifecycle. The service is integrated into data portals, science gateways, and other web applications that manage data distribution from instruments and provide access to reference datasets. Globus is supported by subscribers and funding from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Sloan Foundation. Visit globus.org
