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What is ARCOS Registry?
ARCOS Registry is a national research container registry enabling researchers to retain, maintain and share software containers in a secure manner.
Purpose
The registry aims to address requirements of Australian researchers on a national scale. The objective of ARCOS registry is to manage containers throughout their lifecycle while providing a. secure management, b. stable creation across regions, c. Include simple permission management. Hence overcoming gaps in commercial offerings.
Background
In early 2020, the ARCOS Working Group surveyed community members across the nation to identify challenges facing the community with respect to the use of containers and Kubernetes in research. These challenges and subsequent recommendations were published in a paper titled A National View of Containers and Kubernetes in Research. Responding to these challenges a project was proposed and a Project Plan developed endorsed by the ASC to establish the ARCOS Service. One of the recommendations within the paper and project plan was to design and implement a national research container registry and repository. The ARCOS technical working group has been tasked to achieve this goal.
Features
AAF Authentication (login) - Users can securely login to registry via their institutional credentials.
Natively support Docker images - Supporting researchers in storing the most common form of container images.
Security Scanning - Researchers can use the registry portal to scan their images for vulnerabilities.
Local fast access - As the registry resides on Nectar cloud, it would offer fast local access.
Pull through cache for Docker Hub - The pull through cache feature allows the researchers to fetch existing Docker Hub images without facing download limits.
Upcoming Features
Lifecycle management of containers - Allowing for collaboration and life cycle management of container images.
Ability to maintain open container initiative (OCI) compliant images including Singularity
DOI or equivalent - This feature would help researchers cite their containerised code and data via DOI or equivalent. This allows containers to become FAIR compliant.
Longer term storage - A long term storage could be for example be seen as 3 years of retention period for a container's life cycle.
Support
For technical support and any bugs encountered please contact us.
Email: arcos.registry@ardc.edu.au
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