SENSA

Secure sENSitive data processing plAtform
What is SENSA | Flexible, easy to use & reliable | In practice | Your benefits | Infrastructure features | Getting started & contact


What is SENSA

The Secure sENSitive data processing plAtform (SENSA) offers biomedical researchers a full service for the processing of sensitive data, from a tailored compute and storage environment to expertise in data protection and bioinformatics support. SENSA being connected to the national network of secure IT infrastructures (BioMedIT), it also acts as a gateway to the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN.ch) to enable nationwide biomedical projects. SENSA is provided by the University of Lausanne and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, and builds on over 15 years of experience in operating high performance computing infrastructure for biomedical researchers.

SENSA overview


Flexible, easy to use & reliable

Flexible: A compute and storage environment is tailored to your project. In particular, the number of compute nodes, the storage space, the software tools and services can be adjusted upon request. Research projects can further benefit from our expertise in data protection and IT security as well as data science, bioinformatics and research support (read below).

Easy to use: Once a secure project space has been created for you on the platform, you can access it via a web browser, and log into it with a SWITCH edu-ID account and 2-factor authentication. Your project space can contain various software services such as a relational database management system. Computation is done on project-specific compute nodes, and data are stored in an encrypted storage system (read ‘Infrastructure features’).

Reliable: Following the principle of "data protection by design", SENSA’s dedicated technical architecture enforces the latest standards in security, data protection and service virtualization. For instance, all of the scientific projects running on the platform are completely isolated from each other in order to ensure that only authorized personnel has access to sensitive data (read ‘Infrastructure features’).


In practice

When and how to use SENSA? Here are some use cases to guide you.

Use SENSA to ... analyse sensitive data:

Use SENSA to ... host a web application:

Use SENSA to ... run a national platform containing citizen-provided health data:


Your benefits

SENSA draws on the coordinated expertise of several UNIL and SIB groups in the biomedical and information security domains to offer you much more than a secure computing environment. When using SENSA, you gain access to a dedicated set of expertise in:


Infrastructure features

SENSA is created following the principle of "data protection by design", and implemented through a dedicated technical architecture that enforces the latest standards in security, data protection and service virtualization. The platform offers the following features: Training and documents A gateway to a national network of secure health data

SENSA is part of a national network of secure IT infrastructures called BioMedIT. BioMedIT is currently composed of three Nodes that are hosted in Basel, Zurich and Romandie (Lausanne). The network establishes the infrastructure backbone for the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN.ch) and allows for data interoperability and exchange between Swiss healthcare providers, citizens and researchers.


Getting started & contact

Our expertise and infrastructure services are available to biomedical researchers in Switzerland and beyond.

Contact us for more information, a project space request or pricing information, or to tell us about your needs: