From Siloed Systems to Shared Success: Building a System That Grows with Your Research
Part of the blog series on Collaborative Research IT Infrastructure
In our last post, we explored how shared storage provides more than just space—it delivers reliability, cost-effectiveness, and compliance while ensuring that researchers maintain secure, separate environments. That conversation naturally leads us to the bigger picture: how do we prepare not just for today’s data needs, but for tomorrow’s?
Research is never static. Projects that begin with modest requirements can quickly grow into large-scale endeavors generating terabytes or even petabytes of data. Computational models that once ran overnight on a single server may soon demand clusters of GPUs or cloud-scale capacity. Without careful planning, institutions can find themselves stuck in a cycle of constantly reinvesting in fragmented, short-term solutions.
Shared infrastructure breaks this cycle. Because it is designed as a pooled resource, it can scale both horizontally and vertically: adding new storage tiers, expanding compute capacity, and adopting emerging technologies without requiring each individual research group to reinvent the wheel. This adaptability allows universities to grow capacity in step with research demands, ensuring that no project is limited by yesterday’s infrastructure.
It’s important where centralization happens. To build a system that truly grows with research, centralization would ideally happen at the institutional level, where resources can be managed for efficiency, compliance, and security. If decentralization drops down to departments or individual labs, scaling becomes fragmented and harder to secure. At the same time, decentralization at the inter-university level—where robust systems can be federated—creates opportunities for large-scale collaboration without sacrificing autonomy. The right balance between these layers is what makes scaling sustainable, secure, and future-ready.
Equally important is to recognize that many departments have already invested heavily in their own infrastructure. Transitioning to a shared system should not be seen as abandoning those investments, but as building upon them. By working with IT, researchers can integrate existing resources into the shared system, ensuring past investments continue to provide value while gaining the benefits of enhanced security, professional management, and long-term efficiency.
By investing in shared systems today, universities position themselves to take advantage of tomorrow’s advancements in research computing—from AI-driven analytics to new storage technologies—without requiring researchers to overhaul their individual setups. This creates an environment where innovation is not slowed by technical limitations, but instead supported by a strong, adaptable foundation.
Stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll discuss the key considerations for transitioning to a shared system at the University of Guelph, from funding to governance to staffing.
Written by Lucas Alcantara
Featured picture generated by Pixlr
