In a nutshell

EIDF is a collection of computational, data management and safe haven services supported by the Data Driven Innovation Programme of the Edinburgh and South-East Scotland City Region Deal.

What is the Edinburgh International Data Facility? 

Computing services

Most users of the EIDF  work in the Data Science Cloud, which offers a rich set of data science and analytics tools: from browser-based notebooks to full desktop environments. The Data Science Cloud is also a gateway to more powerful EIDF services like the Ultra2 large-memory system and the Cerebras CS1, and to EPCC's more powerful high-performance computing (HPC) systems like ARCHER2, the UK National HPC Service.

Data management services

The Data Science Cloud sits on top of an Analytics-Ready Data Layer (ARD Layer), where EIDF data can be shared and re-used for science and innovation. This ARD Layer will grow over time as more and more data are collected in the EIDF. Innovators and researchers looking for data can search and browse through the Data Catalogue to discover just what analytics-ready data EIDF has been published, and how they can get access.

EIDF data managers work with data depositors at the Data Ingest Gateway, ensuring that incoming data are safely stored within the EIDF, and well-described in the Data Catalogue. 

EIDF data wranglers work in the Data Preparation Layer, often in collaboration with data depositors and others, to turn archived data from the Data Lake into analytics-ready data products in the ARD Layer. They are then ready for data innovators to create new, exciting datasets that can be stored and shared all over again.

Safe Haven Services

EIDF provides Safe Haven Services to users in health, government, finance and beyond, following best practice in independent governance and supporting the linkage of complex personal data for public benefit research and policy-making under national and regional safeguards. Safe Haven Services can also be created for organisations wishing to host and govern access to their data assets in a highly secure environment.

Safe Havens are isolated from the rest of EIDF, with user approvals, data ingress and egress, and permitted software all controlled by information governance bodies independent of the infrastructure itself.

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