The Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute (ACTRI) is an independent research institute under the University of California San Diego (UCSD) umbrella. ACTRI supports clinical and translational research programs through advanced informatics platforms, data science, and collaborative research infrastructure.
ENACT is a national research program operated by ACTRI and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). ENACT enables multi-institutional research by allowing participating universities to contribute electronic health record (EHR) and research data into controlled analysis environments designed for temporary, study-specific use.
ACTRI needed to support ENACT studies that require data and compute resources from multiple universities to be securely aggregated for analysis. These environments had to be air-gapped, ephemeral, and isolated from external networks to prevent unauthorized data movement.
In addition to building these secure enclaves, ACTRI needed to migrate and modernize existing on-premises research servers from multiple university locations. Researchers relied on legacy virtual machines, on-premises VDI environments, and manual data transfer processes that limited scalability and collaboration.
As the ENACT platform expanded, ACTRI also needed to migrate a separate set of legacy VMware workloads hosted at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). These workloads included a wide range of databases and applications, such as REDCap, and required stronger security alignment with HIPAA and NIST-171 to support future federally funded research initiatives.
Xpertech designed and implemented a security-first research platform on AWS tailored for ACTRI’s ENACT program. The engagement began with the deployment of a HIPAA-aligned, multi-account AWS landing zone designed to support isolated, air-gapped research environments.
After establishing the secure foundation, Xpertech migrated and modernized research servers from multiple on-premises university environments into AWS. Legacy workloads were re-platformed to cloud-native services that improved scalability, performance, and collaboration while maintaining strict data isolation.
Key solution components included:
• Air-gapped AWS accounts and private networks to host study-specific data enclaves
• Migration of on-premises research servers from multiple universities into Amazon EC2–based environments
• EC2 instances used to host R environments and Jupyter-based analytics servers
• Amazon SageMaker integrated with Amazon Bedrock to enable large language model (LLM)–based research pipelines
• AWS Transfer Family used to securely ingest and transfer large volumes of research data into Amazon S3
• Governed data storage using Amazon S3 with policy-based access controls
• AWS WorkSpaces used to modernize legacy on-premises VDI environments for researchers
• AWS Clean Rooms used to enable privacy-preserving collaboration across institutions without exposing raw data
In a subsequent phase of the program, Xpertech designed and deployed an additional AWS organization specifically aligned with HIPAA and NIST-171 requirements. This environment was created to support the migration of 75 VMware virtual machines hosted on-premises at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC).
These virtual machines host a diverse set of databases and research applications, including REDCap, and represent critical research infrastructure used across ACTRI programs. Xpertech established secure networking, identity governance, encryption, logging, and compliance guardrails within the new AWS organization before initiating migrations. Initial test migrations and validation activities are underway, with wave-based migrations planned over the next year to transition all VMware workloads into the secure AWS environment.
With the AWS-based ENACT platform in place, ACTRI successfully migrated and modernized research workloads from multiple universities into a secure, centralized cloud environment. Researchers now have access to elastic compute resources, modern analytics tools, and machine learning services within tightly controlled, air-gapped environments.
The addition of a dedicated HIPAA- and NIST-171-aligned AWS organization enables ACTRI to modernize legacy VMware workloads while maintaining compliance with evolving federal research requirements. The standardized architecture and automation reduce operational overhead and establish a repeatable model for future migrations.
Key benefits included:
• Secure migration and modernization of on-premises research servers from multiple universities
• Scalable analytics and ML pipelines using EC2, SageMaker, and Bedrock
• Faster and more reliable ingestion of large research datasets into S3
• Modernized researcher access using cloud-based virtual desktops
• Privacy-preserving collaboration across institutions using AWS Clean Rooms
• A compliant cloud foundation to support large-scale VMware migrations from SDSC
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