‘SlipStream Appliance: Galaxy Edition’ Relieves Researchers of Burdensome IT Infrastructure Tasks by Offering a Powerful Dedicated Resource to Perform Data Analysis
The Galaxy Team Selects BioTeam™ as the Official Provider of Appliances to Accelerate Biomedical Research
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BioTeam and the Galaxy Project have formed a strategic alliance and are introducing the SlipStream Appliance: Galaxy Edition – a high-performance, server class device pre-loaded with a fully operational Galaxy analysis platform.
“SlipStream Galaxy is designed to reduce the IT and administrative burden of running a production instance of Galaxy,” said Anushka Brownley, Product Manager, BioTeam. “This convenient, affordable appliance lowers the barrier for entry into data analysis for IT-constrained researchers.”
The Galaxy Project software provides a powerful, scientist-friendly, open-access analysis platform and is primarily accessed through the Galaxy Main server hosted at Penn State. However, with over 31,000 registered users, the Galaxy Project is struggling to support the volume of submitted jobs.
“Galaxy Main can no longer meet the community’s needs,” said James Taylor, one of the Galaxy Project founders. “Analysis needs to be decentralized, and one great way to do this is by having local Galaxy instances…Unfortunately, this presents barriers for many groups … BioTeam’s pre-built appliance eliminates all of these barriers, allowing research groups to run their own local Galaxy with minimal effort.”
“BioTeam … is one of the most respected IT and bioinformatics consulting groups in the community. They bring not only the technical expertise … but also the bioinformatics expertise that is one of the most important parts of supporting a Galaxy appliance,” said Anton Nekrutenko, another of the Galaxy Project founders.
Like the Galaxy software platform, the SlipStream Appliance is best characterized by tasks it allows researchers to avoid. This includes tasks such as:
By using SlipStream Galaxy, the average lab can save up to one month of deployment time with start-up cost savings (typically charge-backs to IT department) that are easily over $20,000.
“In Life Sciences there’s a tremendous amount of redundant effort spent building IT systems and installing software. SlipStream encapsulates 10 years of BioTeam best practices to eliminate wasted work and accelerate discovery,” said Stan Gloss, Founding Partner and CEO, BioTeam.
BioTeam is collaborating with the worldwide technology supplier Intel Corporation on the broader strategy for the SlipStream Appliance. “One of Intel’s core strengths is expertise optimizing hardware and software for data-intensive computation. We’re able to maximize the benefit gained from using Intel architecture,” said Ketan Paranjape, Intel Global Director, Healthcare and Life Sciences. “The SlipStream Appliance is architected to deliver power, expandability, and affordability.”
Early feedback from development partners has been positive. “A device that centralizes functions with respect to data archival, storage, and analysis is a tremendous aid,” said Ed DeLong, prominent metagenomics researcher at MIT and member of the National Academy of Sciences. His lab has used the appliance for several months. “The amount of memory built into the device and its considerable compute capability have allowed us to run substantial jobs directly on the device which previously we would have had to run on the MIT 500 core cluster.”
BioTeam is introducing a limited availability early access program strategically designed for thought leaders willing to work with BioTeam to continue to enhance SlipStream Galaxy. General release will occur later this year. The SlipStream Galaxy base appliance – which has 2 Intel Xeon Processor E5-2690 (16 cores total), 384GB RAM, 100GB SSD, and 16 TB usable storage – is priced at just $19,995. A portion of the profits from SlipStream Galaxy will be donated to the Galaxy Project to support ongoing development and growth of the community.
For more information about SlipStream Galaxy and the early access program, contact or visit .
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