Tiger Den is the LSU (Louisiana State University) on-campus research data storage solution available to all LSU campus researchers. The project's primary goal is to provide a storage location for large research datasets and secondarily to develop a research data community. In addition to Tiger Den, other research data services will be provided that will bolster LSU campus research capabilities.

Tiger Den will be operated by LSU Information Technology Services (ITS) and LSU Libraries. It will be accessible to LSU users on the LSU Baton Rouge campus or off campus via the Global Protect virtual private network (VPN). Although the initial funding of Tiger Den was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) via a two-year grant, users will be charged to offset the charges associated with the maintenance, growth and replacement of Tiger Den.

Tiger Den is meant to be a "warm" storage system, which is for data that is only accessed occasionally and workflows that are not overly sensitive to bandwidth and latency. The primary benefit of warm storage is its versatility and affordability, as it strikes a balance between cost and performance. Tiger Den users will enjoy these benefits:

Although the initial hardware purchase was funded by the National Science Foundation, users will be charged to offset the charges associated with the maintenance, growth and replacement of Tiger Den.

• LSU Baton Rouge campus faculty members are entitled to 1 TB space on Tiger Den free of charge.
• The cost is $50 per TB per year.
• Users must agree to reserve storage space in 1 TB units for a minimum period of one year that starts and stops on the fiscal year (July 1st – June 30th).
  • The fiscal year bill will be prorated for first-time Tiger Den users that sign up in the middle of the fiscal year.
  • Users will be billed once at the beginning of each fiscal year for the reserved amount for the next 12 months.
• No charge will be incurred during the deployment phase of Tiger Den (before June 30, 2025).
• Contact Tiger Den administrators to reserve over 20 TB of space
• To keep data on an existing reservation beyond June 30, 2025, a budget code must be provided by March 31, 2025.

To request accounts and storage on Tiger Den, please visit the Tiger Den management portal here: Tiger Den Management Portal.

Steps:

1. On the home page of Tiger Den management portal, click on “Request an Account” and log in with your myLSU credentials.
2. On the account request page, provide answers to the questions, including the budget code, and click on “Submit”. 
3. You will receive an email at your LSU.EDU email address with the subject “[Tiger Den]: E-mail Verification”. Open it and click on the link to verify your email address. 
4. (Only after June 30, 2025) If the requested amount of storage is higher than the free tier, a charge will be posted to the provided budget code. 
5. You will receive an email when your Tiger Den storage is ready for use. 
   1. You can mount it on your own computer, or
   2. You can access it on one of the LSU HPC clusters.

In addition to account management functions, you can find important instructions such as how to mount Tiger Den on your own computer on the portal.

The customers and users of Tiger Den resources and services agree to comply with PS-124 “DATA MANAGEMENT” and all other Louisiana State University policies and procedures. Users have the option to encrypt data during transmission by selecting the appropriate transfer methods. However, data stored on Tiger Den is not encrypted when at rest.

Therefore, Tiger Den should not be utilized to store any data classified as private or confidential as per PS-124.

The customers and users of Tiger Den resources and services agree to comply with PS-121 “ACCEPTABLE USE” and all other pertinent Louisiana State University policies and procedures.

Tiger Den Usage Policy can be found here.