Can Private Cloud Benefit Genome Researchers?

First off, let me put forth a disclaimer: I know next-to-nothing about genomics.

I don’t know the names of the institutions involved in it, I don’t know who funds it, who is making major breakthroughs, how to use the industry lingo, or what the latest findings have been.

But I do know this: Organizations involved in genomics—like those involved in most other scientific research—have an almost bottomless appetite for technology. They need (and have reliably purchased) truckloads of servers and storage devices to process and manage the mountains of data they generate.

It’s a blessing, and a curse. Information technology allows them (“you” if you’re one of them) to analyze data and drive breakthroughs at a previously unimaginable pace—but this technology is not cheap. In fact, it’s the opposite of cheap. And it has a name: High Performance Computing. HPC.

“What’s that?” you ask (if you’re not one of them).

Think specialized hardware for specialized applications run by specialists.

As I alluded to earlier—it’s a costly proposition.

But here’s the good news for genomics researchers—and companies of all stripes that depend on HPC to get the job done: Private cloud technology has advanced to the point where it stands to be of significant value to you. Not only can it reduce the aforementioned costs (especially if you’ve been dabbling in public cloud), but it allows you to implement cloud-native applications that can drastically increase the productivity of your research organization by making both its activities and underlying resources more flexible, scalable, efficient and portable.

I’m not going to say anything else, because we’ve reached the limit of my meager knowledge on the topic. But if you’re hungry for more info, you’re in the right place. We’ve just published a brief on the subject in partnership with SwiftStack (accessible here), and we’re hosting a webinar about it on 6/30 at Noon PDT (register here). We encourage you to partake of both, and if you still have questions after that, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our subject matter experts at copc-vss-group@cisco.com.

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