Library news

Pure Planned outage 24 April – 2 May

Pure, the University’s research information system, will be moving to cloud hosting during the week commencing 24 April 2023.. There will be an extended outage period for Pure from Monday 24 April – Tuesday 2 May. This outage period is required due to the sheer volume of data that Pure has amassed over the last six years, and the testing requirements that go along with this type of migration.

What do you need to do?

Anyone with research outputs that have recently been accepted for publication is encouraged to finalise any outstanding output deposits into Pure prior to the outage. You are also encouraged to contact researchdata@soton.ac.uk if you will need a data DOI, as they cannot be issued or registered during the outage.

Following the migration, users will not notice any difference in the look and feel of Pure and the URL will remain the same. However, migrating Pure to the cloud will offer us several benefits.

What are the benefits?

• Enhanced Performance and New Features: By moving to cloud hosting, we can upgrade Pure more frequently and take advantage of any new features, resulting in improved system performance and a better user experience.
• Improved User Experience: We’re transitioning to a single sign-on (SSO) system for logging into Pure, which will bring us in line with other University Systems and Office 365. Although users will still need to connect to Global Protect to access Pure, this change will streamline the login process and improve overall usability.
• Reduced Technical and Maintenance Costs: Moving to the cloud will help reduce the technical and maintenance costs associated with hosting the system on-premises.
• Alignment with Cloud-First Strategy: The move aligns with iSolutions’ cloud-first strategy and supports the University’s broader goal of moving more services to the cloud.

The University’s public repository, ePrints, will remain live throughout the outage, so all public research outputs and datasets will remain publicly discoverable.

Please note that certain elements of the University’s webpages, such as staff profiles, project webpages, and research institutes, centres, and group pages, are populated from Pure. During the outage, you will not be able to log into Pure to update this information. However, all existing information will remain static on the webpages.

If you have any questions about this upgrade,  please contact the Pure office at pure@soton.ac.uk.