Over the past couple of years, the University of Maryland at Baltimore has built a secure research environment (SRE) to support funded research in medicine and other disciplines. The SRE was developed on the Microsoft Azure platform with support from Microsoft. The SRE utilizes high-speed connections to Internet 2 through both MDREN and Mid Atlantic Crossroads and provides a secure platform for researchers to secure research data in transit and at rest while establishing a robust research platform in the cloud.

The University of Delaware (UDel) has been going down a similar path. The UDELL team recently met with Dr. Peter Murray, Vice President of Information Technology/CIO at UMB and MDREN, to discuss the UMB development process and key features of the platform. Based on this discussion and recommendations from Dr. Murray, UDel was able to approach Microsoft with a similar proposal. Microsoft responded positively and committed over $100,000 to the project. Mark Cabry, UDel CTO, let Dr. Murray and MDREN know of the award in a recent communication – “Thank you for a great discussion on UMB’s SRE environment and processes last month. We followed your advice, engaged Microsoft, and have been approved for a Microsoft grant to help us build our Azure secure research enclave. Your guidance and partnership are greatly appreciated!”

UDel is excited to move forward and expand advanced research infrastructure for the university and the state. “MDREN is happy to connect people as well as campuses to advance research and teaching in the region, and we look forward to further collaboration opportunities,” said Jerry Waldron, Interim Executive Director, MDREN.