OURRstore: The OU and Regional Research Store

Abstract

The data tsunami is upon us: transformative research is increasingly data-intensive, with collections in TB to PB, and Exabytes (EB) coming soon. Projections of research storage growth show that, by 2025, research data will outstrip even YouTube. Yet many institutions are underprepared not only for the "volume, velocity and variety" of data, but especially for stewardship of exponentially growing collections. The University of Oklahoma (OU) has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant that has acquired, and will deploy and maintain, for 8+ years, a large scale storage resource -- the OU & Regional Research Store (OURRstore) -- to enable faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates to pursue data-intensive research, by building large and growing data collections, to share these datasets with collaborators and even the public, and to provide this capability to all institutions in (a) the Great Plains Network and (b) Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) jurisdictions. Via an innovative, low cost business model, researchers will buy their own tape cartridges, good for 8+ years, and pay zero usage charges (just cartridge and shipping costs). OURRstore is expected to have hundreds of users.