Biomedical Research Data Cloud Services with Duckling Collaboration LiBrary (CLB)

Abstract

Rapid advances in scientific research have led to unprecedented data deluge and significant challenges in data interoperability, certification and collaboration. The Collaboration LiBrary (CLB) is designed to manage and collate millions of data files by setting up a unified, robust, and scalable data repository, especially in support of experimental data collaboration and timeline-based data life cycle management. It has recently been released as a component of Duckling, an open-source collaboration environment toolkit developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and widely adopted in many disciplines. In this paper, we present newly developed components for data synchronization and snapshots in an updated architecture for CLB. We have also extended CLB with new data cloud service modules (CLB+) that enables data mapping and synchronization from the cloud to user workspace. CLB+ is implemented as CLB plugins that provide interfaces with biomedical research cloud services from a computer aided drug discovery (CADD) workflow for ensemble-based virtual screening. The flexible plug in architecture of CLB makes it easy to develop a prototype biomedical research data cloud environment. Many other e-science applications may leverage or expand CLB functionalities in data life cycle management in a similar fashion.