Uppmax basics - SNIC SENS and Bianca

Sensitive personal data

• https://www.snic.se/allocations/snic-sens/ Links to an external site.
• Traced to now living persons, e.g.
  
  • human genomic data
  • images/videos containing persons
  • health registry (health data records from healthcare providers)
• When in doubt, contact your university's data protection officer Links to an external site..
• Generally, there must be a Data Processing Agreement Links to an external site. between UU and the data controlling university.
• Bianca is a great platform for computationally intensive research on sensitive personal data. It can also be useful for:
  • national and international collaboration on sensitive personal data (without a high compute need)
  • other types of sensitive data
• Bianca is not good for:
  • storing data
  • publishing data
    • unless the dataset is very popular among Bianca users, e.g. Swegen Links to an external site., SIMPLER Links to an external site.

Biancas design

• Bianca was designed
  • to make accidental data leaks difficult
  • to make correct data management as easy as possible
  • to emulate the HPC cluster environment that SNIC users were familiar with
  • to provide a maximum amount of resources
  • and to satisfy regulations.

• Bianca is only accessible from within Sunet (i.e. from university networks).
• Use VPN outside Sunet. Link to VPN for UU Links to an external site..
• The whole Bianca cluster (blue) contains:
  • hundreds of virtual project clusters (green),
  • each of which is isolated from each other and the Internet.
• Data can be transferred to or from a virtual project cluster through
  • the Wharf, which is a special file area that is visible from the Internet.

1. When you log in to bianca.uppmax.uu.se Links to an external site., your SSH or ThinLinc client first meets the blue Bianca login node.
2. After checking your two-factor authentication, this server looks for your virtual project cluster.
3. If it's present, then you are transferred to a login prompt on your cluster's login node. If not, then the virtual cluster is started.
4. Inside each virtual project cluster, by default there is just a one-core login node. When you need more memory or more CPU power, you submit a job (interactive or batch), and an idle node will be moved into your project cluster.

Bianca has no Internet

... but we have “solutions”

Data transfers:

• NGI Deliver through SUPR
• Transit server (transit.uppmax.uu.se)

Software

• Modules library (almost same as Rackham)
• Local Conda repository
• Local Perl modules
• Local R packages

• More info at
  • https://www.uppmax.uu.se/support/user-guides/bianca-user-guide/ Links to an external site.

ThinLinc

• Bianca offers graphical login
• On web:
  • https://bianca.uppmax.uu.se Links to an external site.
  • requires 2-factor authentication