Whether you are a scientist at the bench, a principal investigator overseeing a research programme, an IT administrator evaluating a new system, or a business decision-maker protecting intellectual property, CERF has a solution designed around your specific needs.
CERF is a secure, 21 CFR Part 11 compliant software product designed to create, capture, store, and manage records, workflows, and documents. CERF is ideal for discovery, GLP, or FDA-regulated labs, or any organization that wants to observe ALCOA-PLUS good documentation and data integrity practices.
CERF provides a simple yet powerful ultra-long-term replacement for paper notebooks, enabling scientists to easily capture, organize, search, and share their work. Never lose key data or repeat experiments unnecessarily again. Collaborate with colleagues using role-based permissions and review your full activity history in the detailed audit trail. Use your favourite applications on Mac, Windows, or Linux and send files straight into CERF. Use the CERF Automaton and Email-to-CERF to capture data from instruments and the field automatically — with no more worries about lost or scattered files generated across your facility.
Explore solutions for researchers →CERF safeguards your intellectual property with automated audit trails, complete revision history, and strong access control and encryption. Innovative management features let you know what is happening in your lab — even when you are not there. Powerful collaboration capabilities let you control who is sharing what and with whom.
Use semantic metadata to bring timeless and consistent meaning to files so that your future scientists will understand them and build upon them. Locate, bundle, and export resources quickly and easily with all your research and business documents consolidated in a single framework. You can even allow scientists who are leaving the lab to take selected work with them, while maintaining complete access to all their research contributions. CERF is easy to deploy, easy to use, and easy on your budget.
Explore solutions for PIs →CERF was built not only for scientists and research managers, but also for the teams deploying and maintaining the system. Built on familiar, open-source enterprise technologies — Java 25, Apache Tomcat 11, and MySQL 9 — CERF is a system your IT team will recognize, understand, and have existing policies for.
CERF makes no external calls, requires no cloud-based licence server, and can run on a completely sealed, air-gapped LAN. It supports LDAP and Active Directory integration, HTTPS/TLS encryption, TOTP multi-factor authentication, and five database options including MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle. Lab-Ally installs the server remotely and handles ongoing update coordination — keeping the IT burden on your team to a minimum from day one.
Explore solutions for IT →Request a live demonstration with a Lab-Ally specialist, or access a free trial server. We'll walk you through the features most relevant to your role and workflows.
Lab-Ally LLC · Columbus, Ohio · +1 (614) 407-4547 · cerf-notebook.com