OpenStack Based eMedLab Enables Cloud-based High Performance Computing for Medical Research

eMedLab, a partnership of seven leading bioinformatics research and academic institutions, is using a new private cloud, HPC environment and big data system to support the efforts of hundreds of researchers studying cancers, cardio-vascular and rare diseases. The research focuses on understanding the causes of these diseases and how a person’s genetics may influence their predisposition to the disease and potential treatment responses.

The new HPC cloud environment combines a Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack platform with Lenovo Flex System hardware to create virtual HPC clusters – bespoke to individual researchers’ requirements. The system has been designed, integrated and configured by OCF, an HPC, big data and predictive analytics provider, working closely with its partners Red Hat, Lenovo, Mellanox Technologies and in collaboration with eMedlab's researchers.

‘Bioinformatics is a very, very data intensive discipline,’ said Jacky Pallas, Director of Research Platforms, University College London. ‘We want to study a lot of de-identified, anonymous human data. It’s not practical – from data transfer and data storage perspectives - to have scientists replicating the same datasets across their own, separate physical HPC resources, so we’re creating a single store for up to 6 Petabytes of data and a shared HPC environment within which researchers can build their own virtual clusters to support their work.’...