ERICA supports projects involving UNSW-based or affiliated Chief Investigators. However, project members external to UNSW can be added as Users and provided access to Project Spaces. All Users must be named on appropriate ethical approvals, hold data custodian and other required approvals, and have entered into relevant data sharing agreements.

Other institutions or organisations wishing to use ERICA may consider establishing a Cloned Instance that can be operated independently.

This depends on several factors - do you have:

• a requirement to store, access, and analyse highly sensitive data?

• a requirement to analyse large-scale and complex data using advanced analytics?

• sufficient funds to cover associated costs?

If the answer to these preliminary questions is 'yes', then ERICA may be suitable.

ERICA holds Privacy and Security Assurance Framework (PSAF) accreditation from eHealth NSW and therefore has approval to host NSW Health data. Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP) accreditation is currently in progress.

ERICA does not currently provide a data repository or data lake facility, but this may be supported in future.

ERICA is delivered through Amazon Web Services (AWS) which offers a “pay-as-you-go” approach to pricing. This approach is similar to how you pay for utilities like water and electricity – you only pay for the services you consume and are billed following consumption. For this reason, we cannot provide a quote for potential costs and it is difficult to provide an estimate without detailed information regarding the type of project that will be hosted and its technical requirements.  

There are several types of associated costs: 

Infrastructure Costs

AWS infrastructure costs are those charged for core services that are shared across all Project Spaces. These costs are currently billed to individual projects on a pro rata basis as an infrastructure contribution, but this may change in future. 

Project Space Costs – billed to individual projects 

These are entirely dependent upon the type of project, its technical requirements, and usage, but may include: 

• project-specific storage and compute requirements 

• file server 

• data ingestion 

• iHub web application 

User WorkSpace Costs (Windows - Asia Pacific, Sydney) – billed to individual projects 

• between AU$42.00 and AU$230.00 per month per User WorkSpace for standard bundle options

• up to AU$1,250 per month per User WorkSpace for standard GPU bundle option

Standard Usage Case  

• small project with a single or few active users 

• linked administrative data 

• standard compute 

• indicative monthly cost – AU$260*

Sophisticated Usage Case  

• large project with multiple active users 

• electronic medical records data 

• graphics processing unit (GPU) 

• machine learning 

• indicative (high usage) monthly cost – AU$2,020*

* includes infrastructure contribution, Project Space, and User WorkSpace costs

Automatic changes to running mode and alerts out of the system assist Users in cost management and optimisation, however, Chief Investigators and Users should be aware of what components are incurring costs and under what circumstances – some, even when idle. Future development work will include enhancements that further reduce associated costs.