Big Data and Cloud Computing

New

Recent advances in genomics, proteomics, imaging and other technologies, have resulted in data being generated at a faster rate than they can be meaningfully analysed. In this course we will show you how cloud computing can be used to meet the challenges of storage, management and analysis of big data. The first half of the course will introduce cloud infrastructure technologies. The second half will cover tools for collaborative working, resource management, and creation of workflows. The instructors will demonstrate how they are using cloud computing in their own research.

N.B. If you sign up for this course, you will be automatically registered for an AWS educate account, which will provide you with sufficient AWS credits to complete the course exercises. If you decide to continue using cloud computing after the course, you will need to either purchase more credits or apply for a grant from programs like: AWS Cloud Credits for Research, Microsoft Azure for Research or Google Cloud Platform Education Grants.

Please note that if you are not eligible for a University of Cambridge Raven account you will need to book by linking here.

• Researchers in the life sciences with little or no experience of cloud computing.
• Researchers from other disciplines may find the course useful, but should be aware that biological data will be used in some of the examples and exercises.
• Graduate students, Postdocs and Staff members from the University of Cambridge, Affiliated Institutions and other external Institutions or individuals
• Please be aware that these courses are only free for University of Cambridge students. All other participants will be charged a registration fee in some form. Registration fees and further details regarding the charging policy are available here.
• Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here

Familiarity with Linux/Unix would be helpful, but not essential

Number of sessions: 1

Bioinformatics, Workflows, Virtualization, Storage, Containers, managing and sharing resources

After this course you should be able to:

• Launch a virtual machine
• Build and deploy Docker containers
• Configure storage
• Create data analysis workflows
• Analyse your own data in the cloud

During this course you will learn about:

• Cloud infrastructure technologies
• Using containers for reproducible research
• Collaborating in the cloud
• Managing cloud resources
• The hierarchy of cloud services: Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS).

Presentations, demonstrations and practicals

• Free for University of Cambridge students
• £ 50/day for all University of Cambridge staff, including postdocs, and participants from Affiliated Institutions. Please note that these charges are recovered by us at the Institutional level
• It remains the participant's responsibility to acquire prior approval from the relevant group leader, line manager or budget holder to attend the course. It is requested that people booking only do so with the agreement of the relevant party as costs will be charged back to your Lab Head or Group Supervisor.
• £ 50/day for all other academic participants from external Institutions and charitable organizations. These charges must be paid at registration
• £ 100/day for all Industry participants. These charges must be paid at registration
• Further details regarding the charging policy are available here

1

A number of times per year