Terrell Russell, Ph.D.

Executive Director

iRODS Consortium

June 29 - July 2, 2026

iRODS User Group Meeting 2026

Barcelona, Spain

18th Annual iRODS User Group Meeting

Welcome!

18th Annual iRODS User Group Meeting

18th Annual iRODS User Group Meeting

Thank you!

Marcus Anderson

Markus Kitsinger

Martin Flores

Derek Dong

Nuno Moreno

Emyr James

Users

Sponsors

Venues

Catering

Laura Capps

Kory Draughn

Alan King

Justin James

Daniel Moore

Jayasree Jaganatha

Stephanie Suber

The iRODS Consortium

Our Mission

• Continuous Improvement
• Grow the Community
• Standardization
• Show value to our Membership
• Sustainability

The iRODS Consortium

Founded in 2013

The iRODS Consortium

SRB started at SDSC in 1995

Reagan Moore

Chaitan Baru

Michael Wan

Arcot Rajasekar

Wayne Schroeder

Richard Marciano

Richard Frost

Randall Sharpe

Robert Templeton

David Wade

Thomas Hacker

Our Business Model

Start with proof of concept

• Use Case Driven
• Statement of Work
• Hands on
• Service and Support Contract
• Master Services Agreement

Consortium Membership

• Three Levels - $12k to $90k, annually
• 10 hours of support
• Participation in governance
• Participation in the software roadmap
• Hourly rate for additional support

Tier 3 Support

• Systems Integrators
• Compute Vendors
• Storage Vendors

Our Membership

Since iRODS UGM 2025

• 18 Membership Renewals
• 4 New Members
• 2 New Service Contracts
• Multiple Proofs of Concept
• 10 Conferences and Events
• 3 Internships
• 1 Senior Team Project
• 1 NSF Subaward

Since iRODS UGM 2025 - New Memberships

2025-2026 Working Groups

Technology Working Group

• Goal: To keep everyone up to date, provide a forum for roadmap discussion and collaboration opportunities
  • All iRODS Consortium Membership

Imaging Working Group

• Goal: To provide a standardized suite of imaging policies and practices for integration with existing tools and pipelines
  • New York University, Santa Clara University, UC San Diego, NIEHS, Harvard, Arizona / CyVerse, Open Microscopy Environment (OMERO), UNC Neuroscience Microscopy Core, KU Leuven, Maastricht, NYU Langone, UMass Medical, Netherlands Cancer Institute, Sanger, UCSC, Crick (UK), U. Osnabrück, CRS4 (Italy), RIKEN (Japan)

Authentication Working Group (Dissolved 202602)

• Goal: To provide a more flexible authentication mechanism to the iRODS Server
  • SURF, NIEHS, Sanger, Arizona / CyVerse, IT4Innovations, Utrecht, KU Leuven

S3 Working Group (Dissolved 202603)

• Goal: To develop tools to present iRODS as S3-compatible storage to existing S3 clients
  • Arizona / CyVerse, NIEHS, SURF

Organized community efforts to standardize protocols, technologies, and methodologies

2025-2026 Efforts

• Scaffolding atop iRODS 5
  • Planning for code removal
  • New authentication scheme
  • Incorporating successful plugins
  • Groundwork for iRODS 6 and 7

• Expanded Partnerships for broader impact
  • Globus
  • OMERO
  • RSpace
  • Dataverse
  • DoITNow

• ​Continued RENCI engagement and projects
  • ​Proposal submissions​
  • University initiatives

2025-2026 Trends

Very similar to last year.  Hearing more concern about hardware costs.

Local Control

• Hybrid deployments and topologies are becoming necessary and normal
• Repatriation and domestic control of data and data products
• Sovereignty concerns over hyperscalers and runaway costs
• Your data as a moat due to AI/LLMs/LRMs
• Compliance with both in-house and regulatory requirements

Standardization Efforts

• Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH)
• OME-Zarr
• JWT/JWK/OAuth2
• Logging / Auditing / Observability

2025-2026 Finances

The iRODS Consortium serves as a sustainability model around the software.

This requires evangelism, outreach, and funds.

We are not there yet.   We need your help.

Members

• Request / Demand engagement from your vendors
  • Make sure they are aware of and compatible with iRODS
  • Encourage them to join directly
• Share ROI of Membership with us
• Share ROI of Membership with your executives
• Share ROI of Membership with your neighbors and partner organizations

Consortium Partnerships

• New products / appliances
• Revenue sharing
• Managed services

Next Year

The larger market is awakening to Data Management as a requirement.

• Commercial solutions are increasing.
• More organizations are finding us organically.
• We're ready for the attention.

iRODS 5 is the new basecamp.

We will build faster with stronger footing.

Thank you

Questions?