Grid portals for bioinformatics

Abstract

The explosive growth of biological and biomedical research requires a new set of software tools and a computational environment that includes high performance computing and largescale data management. These software environments need to be easy-to-use and scalable to support the diverse requirements of educators and researchers. This paper describes the design philosophy and architecture of a bioinformatics portal that operates atop standard Grid infrastructure and tools such as the Open Grid Computing Environment (OGCE) and Globus toolkit. The Bioportal integrates domain-specific tools and standard community tools to provide an integrated, collaborative environment. We also discuss the experiences with deploying the portal for educational and research users in North Carolina and as part of the NSF TeraGrid.