[Bio-Linux] Cloud computing...

[Tony Travis]

Norman Morrison wrote:
> [...]
> Tony - with Scotland's natural resources and cooler temperature enabling
> data centres to be powered and subsequently cooled (aka rainy and cold)
> - you could well end up becoming the European cloud computing hub!

Hello, Norman.

Hmm... lots of clouds in Scotland :-)

Actually, I'm interested in p2p computing. Now, if the 'cloud' was p2p I 
would feel a whole lot differently about it. As it stands, the 'cloud' 
is little more than a honey trap waiting for the unwary. It's a return 
to mainframe 'bureau' computing, and users relinquishing control of the 
resources that we have seen democratised over the past 25 years.

Interestingly, though it was Micro$oft who broke IBM and DEC's monopoly 
on computing resources and presented themselves as David against IBM's 
Goliath IBM are now one of the most prominent advocates of FLOSS. DEC, 
of course did not embrace FLOSS, and paid a high price. What, I wonder, 
has this got to do with Bio-Linux? Well, quite a lot actually, because 
Bio-Linux represents the democratisation of bioinformatics resources.

In NuGO, we've built a distributed bioinformatics resource based on 
Bio-Linux. I'm very pleased to see Bio-Linux5 released, and we will be 
upgrading our 'biobuntu' (Bio-Linux4 + Ubuntu 6.06 LTS) NBX servers to 
Bio-Linux5 as soon as possible. The only obstacle to that now is getting 
GenePattern to run R properly under Ubuntu 8.04. If anyone on the list 
has got GenePattern working under Ubuntu 8.04 LTS please get in touch!

Bye,

	Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis, University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition
and Health, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK
tel +44(0)1224 712751, fax +44(0)1224 716687, http://www.rowett.ac.uk
mailto:a.travis at abdn.ac.uk, http://bioinformatics.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt