Data storage unit for high-performance computation in genomics / Unité de sauvegarde de données pour calculs de haute-performance en génomique

DNA测序技术的最新进展正在改变生物学。遗传信息现在可以以前所未有的速度和低成本解码。这些进步使得原本特别难以解决的实验成为可能。然而，这种现象的一个后果是，数据分析现在需要更专业的硬件和软件来在合理的时间内管理非常大的数据集。我们的研究小组可以直接使用位于舍布鲁克大学主校区的超级计算机Mammouth2。截至2011年10月，Mammouth2是加拿大最强大的计算机，拥有超过38,000个处理器和51,000千兆字节的RAM，具有出色的计算能力。然而，在这个基础设施中，我们的研究小组可以使用的硬盘存储容量很少。因此，我们需要一个快速、高性能的数据存储系统，直接连接到Mammouth2，用于执行苛刻的基因组学分析。该存储系统对于访问其他最先进的基础设施和解决大多数基因组学项目（如基因组组装，比较基因组学，转录组学（RNA-seq），染色质免疫沉淀测序（ChIP-seq）测定，宏基因组学研究等）中发现的新的生物信息学分析瓶颈是必不可少的补充。这将使加拿大生物学研究人员能够利用新的核酸测序技术的全部力量，使具有挑战性的分析得以实现并大大加快。

Recent progress in DNA sequencing technologies is transforming biology. Genetic information can now be decoded at an unprecedented speed and low cost. These advances allow experiments that would otherwise be particularly difficult to tackle. However, a consequence of this phenomenon is that data analysis now requires more specialized pieces of hardware and software to manage very large datasets in a reasonable time. Our research groups have a direct access to the supercomputer Mammouth2 located on the main campus of the Université de Sherbrooke. As of October 2011, Mammouth2 is the most powerful computer in Canada with an outstanding computational capacity provided by over 38,000 processors and 51,000 gigabytes of RAM. However, little hard drive storage capacity is available to our research groups within this infrastructure. We are therefore requesting a rapid, high-performance data storage system directly wired to Mammouth2 for performing demanding genomics analyses. This storage system is an essential addition for accessing an otherwise state-of-the-art infrastructure and addressing the new bioinformatics analysis bottleneck found in most genomics project such as genome assembly, comparative genomics, transcriptomics (RNA-seq), chromatin-immunoprecipitation-sequencing (ChIP-seq) assays, metagenomics studies, etc. This will allow Canadian researchers in biology to harness the full power of new nucleic acids sequencing technologies by enabling and considerably accelerating challenging analyses.