Computer support has become a vital part of Life Science and the emerging field of Bioinformatics, just as it has in other, data-heavy fields. To empower researchers in this area, the GWDG offers a number of hosted services, license servers, compute clusters, and programs.

Hosted Servers

Galaxy

Galaxy is an open-source, workflow-based platform, mainly dedicated to genomic analysis but also for broader data-intensive biomedical research. The platform offers the possibility of setting up workflows and working with histories, keeping your data organized and your research reproducible. Workflows, histories, and data can also be shared internally and even across Galaxy instances, enabling collaborative research.

Our hosted version offers FTP transfer for large data sets, the ability to install all the tools you need from one of the central Galaxy repositories or develop them yourself, and up to 2 TB of storage capacity.

The platform is open to all users with a full GWDG account. In case you lack access permissions, ask us for account activation by submitting a support ticket.

RStudio

RStudio is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the R programming language. This allows for interactively developing your analysis scripts while profiting from the advantages of an IDE such as code autocompletion. The server also offers large hardware resources for your programs, boasting 48 CPU cores and a total of 1 TB of RAM. Home folders are shared with the SCC (Scientific Compute Cluster), which means taking your work to the next level of resource usage is also simple. We can install packages that you might need centrally.

The platform is open to all users with a full GWDG account. In case you lack access permissions, ask us for account activation by submitting a support ticket.

Jupyter Hub

The Jupyter Hub hosts a server for Jupyter Notebooks, interactive code notebooks in the Python programming language. Please see the documentation for more information.

RShiny Server

RShiny is a framework for developing interactive web applets in the R programming language. These interactive webpages are an ideal companion to publications in an increasingly multimedia world. The server offers the possibility of freely hosting your app, with up to 64 GB of RAM.

If you want to host your app with us, please get in touch. Currently, apps are set up manually by an admin. Ideally, your app should already be set up on some version control software platform, such as GitLab or GitHub, which makes code sharing easier.

WinTSBio Windows Server

Do you need to use Windows-only software, but usually work on Linux or macOS? Or do you want to use a paid program we have already acquired a license for? Then the WinTSBio Server is the right solution for you. Several bioinformatics programs are already installed (MaxQuant, Perseus, Proteome Discoverer, Geneious prime, Loupe Cell Browser, and MeroX2.0), as well as the statistics packages mentioned below. Additionally, legitimate users can access the Microsoft Office package through WinTSBio, too.

Account activation is required to access the server, so please get in contact with us by opening a support ticket. Accessing the server can be achieved through RDP, which comes pre-packaged with Windows, or some RDP clients like Remmina for Linux-based OS. For information on this and other Windows servers, please consult the documentation.

Statistics Software

We offer several statistics packages (SAS, SPSS, Statistica, STATA) on the aforementioned WinTSBio Server. Some of these are also available as individual licenses, which are paid for but usually with discounts. For more information, please consult the documentation.

MASCOT

MASCOT is a service for analyzing the results of mass spectrometry experiments on proteins. Users who want to use the server need to be activated, so please get in contact with us by opening a support ticket.

Scientific Compute Cluster

On our Scientific Compute Cluster (SCC), a wide range of software packages from the fields of bioinformatics and life sciences as well as simulation software such as GROMACS are available to you. You can start your small-scale analysis on our dedicated Galaxy or RStudio platforms and then scale up to the SCC. At this stage, we offer support in scaling workflows and programmes to the cluster, help with software installation, etc.

License Servers

GWDG also offers several license servers for validation of programs that require a license. Currently, our main license server is a license pool for paid Geneious license. Please submit a support ticket if you want to inquire about access to this program.

Talk to us

Please get in touch if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions. Particularly welcome are suggestions for new services we could offer or licenses we could acquire for general use, long-term software or HPC projects we could develop jointly, as well as tutorials for currently offered services.

Currently Working On

  • Hosting more applications on our RShiny Server
  • Bioinfo-related upgrades to the NHR-Göttingen cluster
  • Nextflow, Shiny, Alphafold

Community and Communication Channels

Please also check out our Science Blog, which regularly features tips and tricks related to Science Domains, including Life Sciences.

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