Presentation given on 16th March 2015 at the Bioinformatics in the cloud workshop @ EMBL-EBI

1. Desktop as a Service supporting
Environmental ‘omics
Dr David Wallom
University of Oxford
On behalf of the EOSCloud team

2. Biolinux: A scalable solution
• Comprehensive, free bioinformatics workstation based on
Ubuntu Linux
• 10 years & 8 major releases
• 200+ bioinf packages including big integrative tools :-
QIIME, Galaxy Server, PredictProtein, EMBOSS,
...Incorporates all software
Dual BootLinux Live Local Servers Cloud

3. Why Cloud?
Big e-Infrastructure
Biologist

4. Why Cloud?
• Tools such as Biolinux are community enablers
• Data sets can be too big or restricted to easily move
– move the compute to the data
– Researcher work patterns are maintained
• More efficient use of shared resources
• Central maintenance of infrastructure
• Lower barrier to entry (Compared to traditional HPC
and Grid)

5. JASMIN Infrastructure at RAL
• 10/12/14
Thanks to Philip Kershaw
• <number>

6. JASMIN Infrastructure at RAL
• 10/12/14 • <number>
Thanks to Philip Kershaw

7. EOSCloud
• A NERC Big Data capital project
• Organisationally a tenancy in the Unmanaged Cloud
• Interfaces based on JASMIN IaaS software platform
• ‘Users’ or VMAdmin are registered JASMIN users
– Each receives two VMs
• Biolinux
• Ubuntu Docker hosting environment
– Total responsibility for instantiated system
– Accessible though standard remote desktop tools
• Utilising single scale of resources would be a waste
– Can we scale the users virtual services to take into account demand?

8. Boosting Resource Capabilities
• Users VMs operate in native state ‘Standard’
– Enough capability to access stored data
– Configure applications and workflows
– Free
• User may boost his running VM to increased capability
– Enough to run installed BioLInux analysis applications on useful timescale
– Credit consumption only for Boosted instances
• Reference datasets available to users through shared storage
Name # Core Memory (GB) Cost(Credit/hou
r)
Standard 1 16 0
Standard+ 2 40 1
Big 8 140 4
Max 16 500 8

12. Desktop as a Service for research
• Giving researchers an environment they are confident in by
changing the infrastructure around them
• Creating a new user facility for NERC research communities
• Utilise generic cloud capabilities
– Package would operate on any IaaS Cloud
– Currently using native VMWare interfaces
– Not using platform specific capabilities - no impediment to standards
adoption
• Launch for pilot user communities 31st Mar 2015
– Testing and documentation in final days
– Engaging pilot user communities (e.g. OSD)
• Investigating other key usage models such as teaching or online
learning

13. THANK YOU & QUESTIONS