At IThinkUPC, our engineers are passionate about advising and facilitating research groups in accessing the most suitable IT tools for each specific case. In other words, we provide them with the technology that enables maximum autonomy and helps streamline research processes. Our mission is to offer expert, close, and flexible support.

In this video, a research group from the Hospital de Bellvitge’s Microbiology Department explains how we helped them deploy and manage a bioinformatics data analysis environment using Amazon Web Services’ cloud computing tools. Sara and Aida, from the Microbiology Department, share their experience in an interview featured in the video. We have transcribed it here:

Group Introduction: Who are you and what do you do?

We are a research group from the Microbiology Department of the Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge, focusing on bacterial pathogens, primarily pneumococcus and Haemophilus influenzae. Our research centers on analyzing bacterial DNA to understand how these pathogens evolve over time, as well as studying their virulence and antibiotic resistance mechanisms.

How has the incorporation of new technologies impacted your research?

LEpidemiological research has changed significantly in recent years, as new, faster, and more reliable high-throughput sequencing tools have been developed. With these new technologies, we can obtain all the genetic information of microorganisms, but at the same time we generate far more data, and we’ve had to develop new bioinformatics analysis protocols.

What challenges have you encountered with this change?

The main challenge we faced was the lack of bioinformatics tools that met our needs, such as a Linux work environment with high computational capacity for analyses and ample storage space.

What solution did you find?

We found a solution by deploying a dedicated Linux-based work environment on AWS, which provided the high computational capacity and storage required for our analyses. With the expert support from IThinkUPC, we tailored this environment to meet our specific bioinformatics needs seamlessly.

How do you work with IThinkUPC?

After several meetings with Cristina, Eduard, and Dídac, they defined the server architecture that best suited our needs; they were the ones who suggested using Amazon Web Services’ cloud computing tools.

They set up a user-friendly work environment that lets us focus on our research without having to worry about the technical side of things.Currently, we have a self-management system for the server (RunDeck) and another that allows us to create queries and manage incidents (GN6).

RunDeck is a web portal that we access with our own user account, where we have set up a series of tasks to help manage the server. For example, one task allows us to start and stop the server, which is crucial since AWS charges based on usage time. Another very useful task is the monthly consumption query. As new needs arise, we can easily create additional tasks.

On the other hand, GN6 is a direct communication system with the IThinkUPC team, which we use, for example, if we encounter issues installing a program, need to install an update, or simply require IT support.

Would you recommend IThinkUPC to other research groups?

It has been extremely helpful for us to receive support from IThinkUPC, because our group did not have the necessary expertise to deploy and manage the bioinformatics data analysis environment. Now, on the other hand, we have the environment set up and the support available whenever we need it.We believe it could be very useful for researchers with a basic understanding of Linux who need to perform bioinformatics data analyses but lack the training to deploy the entire IT system. .