Join the BLAST team at the virtual CollaborationFest (July 31 -August 1, 2021) after the BOSC 2021 conference to help test and improve ElasticBLAST, a new cloud-based tool designed to speed up high throughput BLAST searches. We would love to have your help with real world testing of our alpha release of ElasticBLAST with you own workflows and data. You may sign up for the CoFest even if you aren’t registered for BOSC 2021.
Here are suggestions for how you can participate. See the FAQs below for additional information.
- Try it out and let us know how well it works. You can be blunt.
- Help us improve the documentation.
- Write a script to make ElasticBLAST part of your workflow.
- Try to process ElasticBLAST results with cloud-native tools. Here is an example.
- Bring your own high throughput BLAST search problem to use with ElasticBLAST! Please discuss it with us first to make sure you don’t blow our budget and get the ElasticBLAST team in trouble!
FAQs about ElasticBLAST and the CoFest:
Q: Where do I sign up?
A: Enter your information on this spreadsheet and indicate an interest in ElasticBLAST.
Q: What is ElasticBLAST and what does it do for me?
A: It speeds up your BLAST searches so you don’t have to wait as long for results.
Q: What kinds of problems is ElasticBLAST good for?
A: It’s most useful if you have large numbers (thousands or more) of queries to BLAST and / or if you prefer to use cloud infrastructure for your searches.
Q: Do I need to be a cloud guru with cloud accounts to try this out?
A: Being a guru is always good but not required here. We’re hoping to get feedback from people with all kinds of backgrounds. Who knows? You might even achieve guru status by the end of the CoFest.
Q: Do I need my own cloud account to participate?
A: You don’t need your own cloud account. We will provide you temporary cloud
credentials to be used with ElasticBLAST for the CoFest.
We hope to see you at BOSC 2021 and will have a poster, ElasticBLAST: Using the power of the cloud to speed up science, but you can attend the CoFest without charge even if you don’t make it to BOSC.