What is LeoMed?

Leonhard Med (LeoMed) is a secure, powerful, and versatile scientific data and computing platform to transfer, store, manage and analyze sensitive research data. Leonhard Med is provisioned and operated by the Scientific IT Services (SIS) of IT Services at ETH Zurich. At the national level, SIS with the Leonhard Med platform is part of the BioMedIT network, representing the BioMedIT node Zurich. Leonhard Med is secure by design (very high level of protection compared to normal IT infrastructures) and compliant with Swiss and ETH regulations for data protection​.

Sensitive data requires special cybersecurity measures to protect the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of data and to protect the Privacy of individuals. Sensitive data usually classifies as: strictly confidential or confidential. An example of sensitive research data is biomedical patient data (pseudonymized or identified). See LeoMed Acceptable Use Policy.

Q: When to use LeoMed?

A: When data you work with are sensitive data i.e., strictly confidential or confidential (e.g., data access, transfer, storage, management, development and application of computational analysis, exploration of data via web apps (dashboards), controlled sharing of data with eligible recipients​ etc.).

LeoMed standard services:

Secure tenants as complete environments for data transfer, storage, management, exploration and computational analysis

Gateway to the national secure BioMedIT network services

LeoMed expert services:

Expert IT solution engineering and Research Data Management support

Expert consultancy on secure services for strictly confidential and confidential data

Added value: secure & customizable to fit various specific research use cases.

You bring in your use case and we support you in enabling it at Leonhard Med with either standard or non-standard service support (see Service Level Agreement)

Visit our website to find out more about our services for sensitive research data.

LeoMed use cases

LeoMed is a customizable research platform that can be tailored to specific research needs.  You bring in your use case and we support you in enabling it at Leonhard Med with either standard or non-standard service support.

Leonhard Med is suitable for sensitive data from any research area (medicine, social and political sciences, economics, environmental sciences etc.). Specialized use cases (e.g. not related to research) may be supported and are subject to specific rules.

We show below a selection of common use case at LeoMed for working with sensitive data (strictly confidential or confidential):

A research group wants to store sensitive data.

• Sensitive data is transferred to LeoMed, either as a service via the BioMedIT secure data transfer process, or on the user level.
• The Data Manager can organize the data on LeoMed.
• The data is backed up regularly.
• After the project ends and the tenant is closed, the data can be securely destroyed or securely archived.

A research group wants to securely manage sensitive data using a data management solution.

• Sensitive data is transferred to LeoMed (see use case above).
• The Data Manager organizes the data using a data management solution (e.g., openBIS)
• The Permissions Manager can add other lab members to the LeoMed tenant so that they can work with the data.

A research group wants to securely share the data with a collaborating research group.

• Research group A transfers data that they collected to their LeoMed tenant.
• Research group B wants to work with the data without transferring it to their own infrastructure
• After the groups sign legal agreements, members from research group B can be added to the LeoMed tenant by the Permissions Manager.

A research group wants to securely work with sensitive data from multiple Swiss hospitals.

• Sensitive data is transferred to LeoMed via the BioMedIT secure data transfer process
• To initiate the process the Data Manager sends a Data Transfer Request BioMedIT, which will validate it and forward it to the Data Providers
• The Data Providers encrypt the data and transfer it to the BioMedIT network
• The data automatically arrives in the project's tenant on LeoMed and the Data Manager can decrypt and work with the data.

A research group wants to securely analyze sensitive data on a high-performance compute cluster.

• Sensitive data is transferred to LeoMed (see use cases above).
• Post Doc A analyzes the data using centrally provided software or software maintained by the research group; potentially run in a container
• Post Doc A analyzes the data by submitting a job to a SLURM high-performance compute cluster, utilizing resources that the cluster can provide, such as, CPUs, GPUs, large memory.
• Additionally, Post Doc A can collaborate on data analysis with Post Doc B

A research group wants to securely host a web application that aggregates and plots sensitive data.

• Sensitive data is transferred to LeoMed (see use cases above).
• A dedicated virtual machine running rootless docker will be deployed.
• Ph.D. student A develops a data analysis pipeline, which aggregates sensitive data and plots it in an interactive R-Shiny app. S/he containerizes the app and transfers the container to the VM on LeoMed. Here s/he can configure and run the container.
• Ph.D. student B wants to use the app. S/he logs in to LeoMed and works with the app in the web browser.
• On request and contingent on a security review, certain web applications can also be exposed to the internet.

Important roles at LeoMed

The roles at LeoMed are described in the LeoMed Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

• The Project Leader (PL) is responsible and accountable for data hosted at Leonhard Med, for example: ensures legal and ethical handling of sensitive data, classifies data (e.g. strictly confidential and confidential data), authorized Users to access data. PLs are responsible for the whole project data lifecycle within Leonhard Med. PL roles are often assigned to professors, heads of administrative departments or of staff units).​ PLs may but are not required to have access to LeoMed as Users. The PL can delegate the user management to a Permissions Manager.

​

• The Permissions Manager (PM) is delegated by the PL and is responsible for requesting, on behalf of Users, user access or revocation of user access to Leonhard Med​. PMs may but are not required to have access to LeoMed as Users.
  

• The Data Manager (DM) is often used in the BioMedIT context and is responsible for managing strictly confidential and confidential data on Leonhard Med, for example: requests data transfers, decrypts data, manages data with dedicated software tools ​(note that this role is specific and not included in the LeoMed Acceptable Use Policy). DMs are required to have access to LeoMed as Users.
  

• The User is a person authorized by a Project Leader to access and process data in Leonhard Med​. Users are responsible for the confidentiality of personal access data and identification mechanisms, such as passwords, PINs, private keys, tokens. The Users may not disclose or make available this access data to third persons, or give them access under their account name (see LeoMed AUP Art. 8).

​ Every User (User, PL, PM, DM) must comply with the Leonhard Med AUP​ and sign an agreement stating that they will follow the Leonhard Med AUP.

LeoMed layout

Leonhard Med is a secure multi-tenant platform with two types of tenants: secure isolated and secure shared tenants.

Tenant: complete environment for data transfer, storage, management and analysis. Technically, a tenant consists of a completely isolated network space containing data, user access, computing and software applications resources. A secure shared tenant has several allocations: the resources (e.g. data or computing) purchased by a customer within a secure shared tenant in Leonhard Med.

Becoming a LeoMed Customer

Leonhard Med is provided as a service to Customers (e.g. professors) who offer it to their Users (e.g. researchers). Users require authorization to access LeoMed.

Good to know:

Customers: purchase LeoMed services. PL: authorize Users to access LeoMed​. Customers and PL are often represented by the same person.

PMs: request user access​.

Users: access and use LeoMed​

What to do next:

• researchers interested in using LeoMed, should get in touch with SIS at leomed-support@id.ethz.ch
• SIS will explain the service options, analyze the requirements and prepare a service quote:
  
  • explain standard and non-standard service configurations (e.g. tenant types, customizations)
  • indicate options for 1 year or for 4 years initial service validity (can be followed by extension)
  • explain roles and identify persons to be assigned to roles (e.g. Customer, Project Leader, User)
  • prepare a draft service quote tailored to requirements
  • assign an Account Manager at SIS as main point of contact responsible for managing the customer account (e.g. onboarding, further service purchases, analysis of new requirements, service customizations etc.)
• The PL will identify initial authorized users (e.g., Permissions Manager - PM, Data Manager - DM, User)
  • PL and each authorized User must sign the Leonhard Med Acceptable Use Policy
  • initial authorized users need to provide relevant information for user account creation (see User accounts)
  • ETH-members will access LeoMed from the ETH network (e.g., VPN). In order for ETH-externals to reach LeoMed from outside the ETH network, the LeoMed support team needs to allow your institutional IP address or the IP address range (see Adding network sources to the allowlist).
• Once all the requirements have been clarified, SIS will provide a draft service quote for the initial purchase of a Leonhard Med tenant
• The Customer will approve the quote and send a binding requests to SIS at leomed-support@id.ethz.ch

LeoMed documents

• The Acceptable Use Policy of the Leonhard Med Secure Scientific IT Platform 
• Service Level Agreement (standard and service-based) of the Leonhard Med Secure Scientific IT Platform (PDF)
• Form to sign by every authorized Leonhard Med user to abide to the Acceptable Use Policy and Service Level Agreement

LeoMed Price Model

Date: 05 Jul 2024 

• These specifications and prices are valid from 01/02/2022 until further notice.
• Specifications and prices are indicative and may vary depending on supplier, product life cycle, technological changes, etc.
• Value Added Tax (VAT) of 8.1% is not included in the pricelist. If applicable, it will be added in the invoice.
• When not otherwise specified, prices include costs that are not covered by funding agencies like the ERC.
• ETH-internal prices are subsidized by ETH and are therefore valid only for members of the ETH domain. ETH-external prices are valid for customers that are not members of the ETH domain.
• Memory is expressed in binary units (1 GiB = 2^30 bytes), whereas storage is expressed in decimal units (1 TB = 10^12 bytes).               
• ¹ RDM openBIS price covers: instance setup for openBIS in a specified Leonhard Med tenant, openBIS technical maintenance, minimal openBIS data model, user training and support. The cost does not include infrastructure cost. Default openBIS instance allocation is: CA-VM-VF2
• ² courses are included free of charge in the service. Additional course sessions may incur a fee.
• ³ BioMedIT base package (e.g., secure tenants, BioMedIT federated user identity management, standard secure data transfer process) are provisioned to eligible BioMedIT customers (i.e., all SPHN and PHRT projects funded in phase I and II) at no cost for the projects. GPU compute nodes are not covered by the BioMedIT base package.                                                            
• ^4,5 These service configurations are included per default the BioMedIT base package and may be requested by customers independent of BioMedIT, i.e., as non-standard service configurations.
• ⁶ These service configurations are included free of charge in the service and are offered on request.
• ⁷ Subscription expert services (e.g. customer-level SLA) are offered on request, for an initial period of 2 years with possibility of extension. A subscription must amount to a minimum of 20 % FTE per year.
• ⁸ No steering tax will be charged for the LTS service from January 1st, 2020 for all ETH members.
• ⁹ User controlled Virtual Machine (USR-VM) is a feature of General Purpose or Compute Nodes, that allows authorized users to deploy containers (e.g. Docker, Singularity) within a tenant at Leonhard Med. Authorized users may only access the user controlled VM from within the respective Leonhard Med tenant (i.e., a user controlled VM is not accessible from other tenants or from outside of Leonhard Med). USR-VM must be purchased in addition to a General Purpose or Compute Node.
  
• ¹⁰ User controlled Virtual Machine for web applications (USR-WEBAPP) is a feature of General Purpose or Compute Nodes, that allows authorized users to deploy web applications within a tenant at Leonhard Med. Authorized users may access the user manged web application from both within or outside of the respective Leonhard Med tenant. This feature is suitable for running web applications that need to be accessed from outside of Leonhard Med. The standard USR-WEBAPP includes reverse proxy configuration with option for SWITCH edu-ID authentication. The access to the user manged web application must be through 2FA authentication, either through our reverse proxy or supported directly by the web application. Any application running in a user manged web application is subject to SLA 7.2 Non-standard service configuration: before deploying any application inside at Leonhard Med, a mandatory security assessment will be conducted by the service provider, subject to cost (i.e., SEC-REV). USR-WEBAPP must be purchased in addition to a General Purpose or Compute Node and together with SEC-REV.
• ¹¹ User applications managed by the service provider (MGNT-APP) is a feature of General Purpose or Compute Nodes, that allows authorized users to access and use applications that are deployed and managed by the service provider, on behalf of the users, within a tenant at Leonhard Med. Any user applications managed by the service provider  is subject to SLA 7.2 Non-standard service configuration: cost are according to estimated effort for service provisioning, including security assessment. The service provider consults the customer on the specific use case and provides a binding quote.
• ¹² These services must be purchased together with compute resources (CA* or CN*).  Default GraphDB instance allocation is: CA-VM-VF2. Note that this service is subject to licensing. The Customer must provide the GraphDB license information in the service request.
• ¹³ Counts as standard service if less than 5 working days. Anything above is a non-standard service and a formal individual Service Leve Agreement will be drafted.
• The following items are included per default and free of charge in the service: user support, access to centrally installed software and applications library (including workload manager and container technologies), option for secure data transfer at user level, option for data restoration from backup.
• Due to a worldwide semiconductor shortage, it is not possible to say when we will be able to order new Standard and High-end GPU nodes, what type of GPUs they will contain, and how much they will cost.
• For any questions regarding the Leonhard Med service configuration options and prices or different types of available expert services models (e.g. subscription or daily rates), please contact the Leonhard Med service desk (leomed-support@id.ethz.ch).