Cloud Analytics Infrastructure

Eureka Overview

Eureka is an analytic infrastructure service provided by Health Data Compass to quickly provision virtual machines on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for Compass users within the Compass partnership. Eureka instances are designed for quick creation and deployment so you can get started whenever you need to. By design each Eureka instance is intended to only exist for no more than 1-year. This means if your analytic needs are dynamic and come in waves, we can create a Eureka instance to match your analytic demands. While generic virtual machines (VMs) are easy for an individual to deploy themselves directly on GCP or any public cloud provider, Eureka virtual machines are unique in the following ways:

HIPAA Compliance

Eureka instances are preconfigured to meet the HIPAA security and compliance standards of Health Data Compass and its partners (CU Denver, CU Medicine, UCHealth, and Children's Hospital Colorado). Therefore, they are pre-approved for storage and processing of protected health information (PHI) from these organizations. These standards extend far beyond typical security controls on virtual machines.

Scalability & Affordability

Eureka instances can be scaled to be just the right size for the workload at hand. Costs scale up and down accordingly, and are charged primarily based on the amount of time a system is running. If your VMs are off in the evenings or weekends, you'll only pay for storage during those times, not for compute power. See the Eureka Cost Estimator.

Various Analytic Capabilities

Eureka offers different analytic environments to meet your needs. You can get up to 3 different VMs with Eureka App VM and you can get high performance computing with Eureka HPC. Learn more about the various Eureka offerings below.

Eureka App VM

Each instance comes with a unique GCP project that includes:

  • BigQuery

  • Storage

  • App VM (sized to your order)

    • VM is CentOS 7 Linux with preinstalled applications

  • Cloud Source Repository

  • Custom URL for web-based log in to App VM and RStudio

  • Limited internet access from App VM (available 7/20/2020)

  • Nightly back ups of VM images

Eureka HPC

Each instance comes with a unique GCP project that includes:

  • Storage

  • BigQuery

  • HPC VM

    • VM is CentOS 7 Linux with SLURM Control for batch job execution

    • Ephemeral VMs spun up based on job needs

  • Custom URL for web-based log in to HPC VM

  • Limited internet access from HPC VM

  • Attached Managed Network File Storage

Data Access

There are three types of data sources that Compass Users may interact within Eureka:

1) Data that Compass has custom delivered to a Compass User using a Compass-managed GBQ data mart

2) Data that the Compass User has brought into Eureka via a Compass Persistent Storage project

3) Publicly available datasets Google offers on Google BigQuery. These datasets include Medicare, genomics, weather data, and more. (See the latest list here.)​

Eureka Billing

Compass Users pay for their actual Eureka costs and Compass support services on a quarterly basis. Payment is set up at the time of the creation for each of your Eureka instances and Compass Persistent Storage projects. Changes to your payment method can be made by contacting Compass directly here.

You can track your Eureka usage by running 'Reports' available to you on the Google Billing Console (from within your Eureka instance) or you can request an update on your usage from Compass here.

Getting Started

Complete the following steps to obtain a new Eureka instance or Compass Persistent Storage project. Once your request has been completed you will get a confirmation email along with further access instructions.

Request a new Eureka instance to Compass via e-mail here and include the following details:

  1. Name of the Eureka Instance Owner. This individual must have reviewed and completed the Eureka Instance Owner Agreement.

  2. Type of project (Eureka App-VM, Eureka HPC, Compass Persistent Storage) needed.

  3. Analytic tool(s) available in Eureka that you will use.

  4. Compute and storage requirements. These differ depending on the type of Eureka instance being requested.

    1. App-VM: CPUs, RAM, local storage and number of VMs needed (max is 3). Please use the Eureka Price Estimator to determine your requirements and share a screenshot of your final configurations to Compass.

    2. HPC: Attached storage size.

  5. GBQ data mart name(s) delivered by Compass that will be accessed in this Eureka Instance. Please include the name of the Compass Analyst who is supporting your GBQ data mart delivery.

  6. A list of Compass Users who need access to the Eureka instance .

    1. Note: A Compass User Account is requested to access Eureka. To obtain a Compass User Account please review and sign the Eureka User Agreement and complete the Compass User Account Intake Form.

  7. A University Speed Type number. This is where Eureka charges will be billed to.

Request a new Compass Persistent Storage (CPS) project to Compass via e-mail here and include the following details:

  1. Name of the Eureka Instance Owner who is responsible for the Eureka instance(s) that this CPS project will be used to support. The Eureka Instance Owner must review and sign the Compass Persistent Storage Agreement.

  2. Name of Eureka instance(s) that the CPS project will be used to support. All Compass Users on these instances will have access to the CPS project.

  3. A University Speed Type number. This is where the CPS project will be billed to.

Modifying Eureka Instance Resources

Changes can be made to a Eureka instance after deployment (see 'Request a new Eureka Instance' above, Step 4). Of note, local or attached storage cannot be decreased post-deployment. Please request a change to Compass via email here. An Instance Owner must be included on this communication.

Modifying Compass Users

If you would like to add or remove a user from an existing Eureka instance or Compass Persistent Storage project please request a change to Compass via email here.

No longer needing your Eureka instance or Compass Persistent Storage project?

When you are done with your Eureka instance or CPS project we can decommission your instance (email us here). Decommissioning means deleting all GCP resources associated with the Eureka instance or CPS project(eg. App-VM, local disk, Google BigQuery, Google Cloud Storage, Cloud Source Repository). This does not impact a GBQ data mart that Compass uses for custom data requests that are accessed within the Eureka environment. Once a Eureka instance or CPS project is decommissioned there is no way to retrieve it.