TSCC NIST 800-171 Compliant Environment

As of January 2026, the Triton Shared Computing Cluster (TSCC) has been designated as NIST SP 800-171 compliant by UC San Diego. This environment is intended to support researchers who must process, or store Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) or National Institute of Health (NIH) Controlled Access Data (CAD) in accordance with federal security requirements.

The TSCC compliant environment provides a secure computing platform for research projects that require adherence to NIST 800-171 security controls, while still offering the flexibility and performance expected from a shared research computing system.

Who Should Use This Environment

Researchers who work with CAD or other sensitive research data that requires NIST SP 800-171 compliance should request access to the TSCC compliant environment.

How to Request Access

To initiate access, contact TSCC Support.

Include the following information in your request:

  • Name
  • Affiliation (Department / Institution)
  • Brief description of the research project
  • Description of the data that will be accessed or processed
  • Whether you have completed the required campus attestation for handling-controlled data
  • Hotel or Condo
    • If Condo, number of nodes (and the type of nodes) you plan to purchase
    • If Hotel, how many hours? (10K minimum).
  • Estimated number of users

Available Usage Models

Researchers may choose one of the following allocation models:

  • Hotel Program – short-term or variable usage
  • Condo Program – dedicated purchased resource

Rates

Service Unit UC Rate Non-UC Rate

NIST Node System Setup

one time per node/server

 Installation $5,039 $7,937

NIST Condo Operations CPU Node

 Node/year $2,382 $3,741

NIST Condo Operations GPU Node

 Node/year $7,889 $12,390

NIST Hotel purchase

minimum 10K base core-hours or SUs

 SU $0.1402 $0.2253

NIST Customer Setup

 Each $20,000 $32,000
Recharge rates are subject to change with approval from the UC San Diego Recharge Rate Committee. Normal IDC rules apply.

Indirect Costs (IDC) for UC San Diego Users

Costs associated with Cloud Computing Services (research storage, managed services and cloud services) provided by SDSC are exempt from the application of IDC when acquired to support extramurally funded research. This includes:

  • Backup Storage (CommVault)
  • Cloud Storage and Compute
  • Project Storage (NFS)
  • Triton Shared Computing Cluster (TSCC)
  • Universal Scale Storage (Qumulo)
  • Virtualization Hosting (VMWare)
When developing budgets for new research proposals, include these costs in the exclusions for modified total direct costs (MTDC).

Onboarding Process

Access to the NIST 800-171 compliant TSCC environment involves the following steps:

  1. Eligibility Verification
    TSCC administrators will coordinate with the UC San Diego campus compliance office to verify which users are authorized to access the controlled data and the secure system to use on TSCC.
  2. User Agreements
    All approved users must sign the TSCC Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) before access is granted.
  3. Principal Investigator Agreement
    The Principal Investigator (PI) must sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) confirming the selected usage model and associated costs.
  4. Account Provisioning
    Once documentation and approvals are complete, accounts will be provisioned and users will receive onboarding instructions for the secure environment.

Questions

For additional information about the TSCC NIST 800-171 compliant environment, onboarding, or pricing, please contact TSCC Support.

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