NIH STRIDES

Introduction

The NIH Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES) Initiative allows NIH to explore 

the use of cloud environments to streamline NIH data use by partnering with commercial providers (GCP/AWS). 

The NIH STRIDES Initiative:

• • Provides biomedical researchers with access to advanced, cost-effective cloud computing infrastructure, tools, and resources

  • Enable researchers to work collaboratively in the cloud by establishing an interconnected ecosystem of biomedical research data

  • Equip researchers with emerging cloud solutions for data management & computation to enable experimentation and innovation

The benefits of participating in NIH STRIDES program include:

• Pre-negotiated favorable pricing for cloud services

• Access to training to help researchers harness the power of the cloud

  • Receive opportunities for professional service engagements to help drive success

  • Receive guidance for best practices in areas such as data storage, governance, and controlled access

Enrolling to the NIH STRIDES initiative

NYU has enrolled in the NIH STRIDES initiative in December 2020 by signing an agreement with Carahsoft, GCP's billing and administrative partner. Thus NIH-funded NYU researchers with an active NIH award may take advantage of the STRIDES Initiative for their NIH-funded research projects. 

The NYU High Performance Computing (HPC) team works closely with Burwood Group, a GCP reseller, to provide access to GCP resources for NYU researchers who are approved to participate in the NIH STRIDES initiative. NYU researchers who wish to participate must follow the steps outlined below.

Step 1: Email the NYU HPC Cloud team (hpc-cloud@nyu.edu) answers to the following questions or submit the ServiceLink form.

1. NIH Institution/Center/Office: (e.g. National Cancer Institute, national Institute of Environmental Health Studies, etc.)

2. NIH Grant Number:

   1. Program and Project Name: *This identifies the project locally, and those conducting the research. It is a component of the full account name. Example <org>.<project name> 

   2. Estimated GCP spend: estimate of what the consumption will be (We want this to set up some budgeting alerts. It doesn’t limit the project).

3. Billing Admin Name:  NYU High Perfomance Computing GCP Billing Admins

4. Billing Admin Email:  hpc-gcp-billing-admins@nyu.edu 

• 1. Primary Contact: Name of Principal Investigator

  2. Primary Contact email: Email for the person listed in #7

  3. Program Officer Name (First and Last Name) *This is the NIH Program Officer or Lab Chief working with the project. This person should give consensus to cloud adoption from an NIH programmatic side and should approve cloud funding for the project. This person will receive reports on usage and cost.

  4. Program Officer Email: email for the person listed in #8

  5. NYU Chartfield: Please provide an NYU chartfield that can used to fund the GCP project. You can still apply for NIH STRIDES initiative benefits even without providing an NYU chartfield. However, you may choose to provide an NYU chartfield if you plan to continue using the GCP project after the NIH project funding ends.

Step 2: PIs email the NYU HPC Cloud team confirming that they agree to the following statement:

"PI <enter Full Name> agrees to receive the applicable billing discounts established by the NIH STRIDES Initiative, provided that such services exclusively support NIH-funded research activities.  If any services billed hereunder do not exclusively support NIH-funded research activities PIs will be in breach of this agreement"

Step 3: Once the NYU HPC team receives the answers to the above questions (Step 1) and the PIs agreement (Step 2), they will work with Burwood Group and NIH to confirm the project eligibility for NIH STRIDES initiative. Burwood will respond to the PI (listed in questions #7 and 8 above) about the decision.

Step 4: If the request is approved, Burwood will issue a quote for the amount specified in Step 1, Item #4 "Estimated GCP Spend" above.

Step 5: Once the Purchase Order (PO) has been issued, the NYU HPC Research Cloud team will create a GCP project under the nyu.edu org and provide the PI with access to the GCP project resources (VMs, storage, etc.)

During the project, Burwood group will be billing monthly towards the PO.

More information about the NIH STRIDES Initiative

• Read more About the NIH STRIDES Initiative

• Google Office Hours Sign Up for STRIDES

• Questions for joined NIH STRIDES INITIATIVE & Internet2 CALL – JUNE 4, 2020

Contact

• • For general questions about Research Cloud/GCP please email the NYU HPC Research Cloud team: hpc-cloud@nyu.edu

  • To learn more about the NIH STRIDES Initiative, email the team at STRIDES@nih.gov