Database

In a data analysis environment, organized collections of data need to be hosted and access granted to set of researchers. A database service provides an interface to store collections and provide privileged access from a variety of endpoints. Databases also provide a much more structure and searching capabilities of information than file-based methods. Hosted database servers can be shared have databases for several groups and store different datasets. Access to the data/database is controlled by the owner of the data or based on a data use agreement.

Eligibility information is outlined below based on providers with offerings that are available to the entire Harvard community or a specific unit/appointment. 

University-wide

Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Research Computing

FASRC currently hosts the following databases for research use, which are available to the cluster or virtual machine services.  All data schema is defined by the researchers, FASRC Systems Engineering only creates the databases for the researcher.

  • MySQL
  • PostgresDB
  • MongoDB
  • MariaDB 

Audience

Available to all users with an FASRC account.

Service Provider

FAS Research Computing

Service Fee

None

Service Website

https://www.rc.fas.harvard.edu/ 

Contact Information

rchelp@rc.fas.harvard.edu 

Unit/Appointment-specific

Harvard Business School

HBS currently hosts the following databases for research use, which are available to the cluster or virtual machine services.  All data schema is defined by the researchers, HBS RCS only creates the databases for the researcher.

  • MariaDB

Audience

Available to all users with an HBS Grid account.

Service Provider

Harvard Business School

Service Fee

None

Service Website

https://grid.rcs.hbs.org/ 

Contact Information

Contact Bob freeman at research@hbs.edu 

Harvard Medical School

HMS RC provides databases to researchers which are generally used either as part of research conducted on O2 or to back an HMS-hosted website. 

The HMS database service is not intended for an enterprise service and only has limited resources deployed based on research needs. Service is not load balanced nor high availability which can limit other users if the database server load is high. Database backups or table snapshots can be provided and stored in a backup system if users work with RC and the HMS DevOps team. Typically, open source or open license databases (MySQL or PostgreSQL) are provided. Enterprise Database like Oracle or MS SQL require a specific service deployment and management plan in coordination with other parts of HMS IT. Database administration (tuning, schema, etc.) are the responsibility of the research project.    

Availability, uptime, and backup schedule of is provided as best effort. DevOps staff do take overnight shifts, but provide off-hours support only for system-wide failures, not individual database issues. 

Database size is dependent on resource constraints. 

Audience

Available to all users with an O2 account.

Service Provider

HMS

Service Fee

None

Contact Information

Contact Amir Karger at rchelp@hms.harvard.edu