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Dartmouth's Secure Computing Environment
Granite is Dartmouth's secure research environment that allows researchers to securely access and analyze data on an encrypted platform. The Granite secure environment is designed to meet the privacy and security requirements to protect individual information (PII) and protect health information (PHI) per the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Research Identifiable File (RIF) Data Use Agreements (DUAs). The DUA specifically states, that in order to access CMS RIF data, users agree to meet the level and scope of security requirements established by:
- Revision of OMB Circular No. A-130, Transmittal No. 3, Appendix III, "Security of Federal Automated Information Resources;
- Federal Information Processing Standard 200 entitled “Minimum Security Requirements for Federal Information and Information Systems”, and;
- Special Publication 800-53 “Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems”
Requirements for Granite access
You must have all of the below credentials in place and enabled.
Encryption
To be compliant with policies for Dartmouth, CMS, and other federal agencies, all devices used to access data in Granite must have been encrypted using Bitlocker (Windows) or FileVault (Macs). Please contact your Institutional Department IT Administrator for support to ensure all your devices meet the encryption requirement.
Dartmouth NetID
People who are actively working to fulfill the academic mission of Dartmouth, including its professional schools, are eligible to have a Dartmouth sponsored account issued. This results in a user specific Dartmouth NetID being created.
- The Dartmouth Faculty Member you are collaborating with will need to request approval from TDI Operations for a Sponsored Account through TDI Central. (TDI Central can only be accessed using a NetID.)
- If you believe you have a NetID but do not remember it you can find it using your name in the Dartmouth DND Lookup. Note your account will only show if it is currently active.
Two-factor authentication (DUO)
- See DUO Setup to enable.
Global Protect VPN for off campus access
- See GlobalProject VPN Setup to enable.
Virtual Machines in Granite
Each project (i.e., each DUA) has its own Linux Virtual Machine (VM). Each DAC Linux VM has software needed for doing research, including:
- SAS, Stata MP, R and Rstudio, Python and Pycharm
- text editors (MS Visual Studio Code, Gvim, and a few others)
- Libre Office (equivalent to MS Office Suite)
- web browser (for previewing .html and .pdf files on the VM)
On each DAC Linux VM, users have additional guides for reference, covering the below list of common tasks. A copy of this reference guide is provided to each new user upon creation of a new Granite account.
- Using SAS and Stata
- Installing R packages
- Dataset and other file locations
- Troubleshooting guide for common issues users may encounter
Granite Fees
On the Dartmouth Services PortalOpens in a new window see "How much does Granite cost?" section for detailed information on the fees associated with CPU, GB, GPU, and TB storage resource unit costs.