LABORATORY INFORMATICS GUIDE 2015 | THE CLOUD ➤


highlighted was being able to cloud burst specific jobs that need to be completed quickly. ‘We have also had examples where people have said we really need these results; can we run fast enough so we can get them in 12 hours instead of 24?’ he said. From Core Informatics’ perspective, a


key offering of their services is the ability to manage both structured data through the LIMS and unstructured data through the ELN, within one environment. This provides one coherent platform so that data can be managed effectively. Uzzo said: ‘By providing LIMS, ELN and


SDMS technologies, customers in any of the industries that we support can have a single platform for all of their data that is comprised of structured data management elements in the LIMS. We also provide the electronic lab notebook which captures all of their unstructured experiments and observations. We have direct and native integration with Microsoft and Office web apps, so that these scientists can use programmes and applications that they are most familiar with and directly associate and tie it with structured elements in the LIMS, all with a single login and a single account.’


BRINGING TOGETHER MOBILE AND THE CLOUD One trend that has been touched on briefly is the proliferation of tablets and mobile devices within the workplace. Moreover, scientists increasingly want to access data wherever they are and this is something that Core Informatics sees as key to providing another area of differentiation from its competitors. Madden remarked that cloud computation


could be used to deliver real-time analytics, potentially to any computer, mobile device or tablet. Madden said: ‘We see a trend where users want to tap into the cloud for some heavy lifting; it can provide the analytics and the analysis and the results can be delivered anywhere. For example, in our Spotfire Life Sciences portfolio we are delivering dashboards and results to a broader set of customers through the webplayer that we have and delivering that data through mobile devices.’ Uzzo said: ‘We are seeing a significant surge


within our customer base with companies that are interested in using mobile devices, whether tablets or smart phones, in the laboratory. Our goal is to make 100 per cent of our application functionality easy to use on any size tablet and smartphone.


22 | www.scientific-computing.com/lig2015


Cloud computation could be used to deliver real-time analytics,


potentially to any computer, mobile device or tablet


is cloud and mobile devices that are going to provide that real-time data access from any location.’ One area, if end users are willing to share


sensitive information, that could provide a massive benefit to the scientific community is using the cloud as a platform for collaboration. In principle this is as easy as just creating a separate instance or allocating space on a multi-tenant installation that can be accessed by the collaborators so that they can share some data but keep private data in a separate environment. This is a primary focus for Core Informatics


and something the company believes is secure and ready to deliver to customers early in 2015. Uzzo said: ‘We have a collaboration product that we are going to be launching in Q1 of next year and many of our customers are already using this functionality to support different types of collaboration models. One customer is using it to support tissue culture laboratories across five different physical sites around the


Uzzo continued: ‘With today’s current


environment and the trend of externalising a lot of research operations many of our customers now have research operations for which the sun never sets. People want access to data in real-time and often that is when they are outside of work hours, because someone else somewhere out in the world has published a new piece of data that is available.’ Uzzo added: ‘We believe that we are the first


vendor in our market to provide 100 per cent responsive application that is suited around any of these environments. Mobility is going to drive the trend even more, I think, and it


globe. They are using a private cloud-based multi-tenant installation of our product.’ Uzzo provided a number of examples for


this type of collaboration, he said: ‘We also have customers who are managing all of their global CRO interactions with our platform where each CRO has a dedicated application within the system that grants them restricted and isolated access to the assays and samples and the data that they are generating but they are restricted from viewing each other’s work. Another example was collaboration with the Saudi Genome project. ‘This is a collaboration that we have done with Life Technologies where they are doing a population scale initiative at 13 different hospitals within Saudi Arabia. Our system is being used to facilitate collaboration and interaction between all of these 13 different sites.’ The idea behind providing a platform


for science as opposed to highly specific customisable products has certain advantages, according to Mary-Ann Moore, vice president of marketing at Core Informatics. She said: ‘One of the reasons I joined Core Informatics recently is just seeing how the Core Informatics system is so configurable. I think that Core Informatics offers an advantage in being able to have customers configure their systems, as opposed to customise them, which allows for much easier upgrade paths.’ Moore continued: ‘It is really important


to take a step back from customer issues sometimes, so you can really see the patterns among customer requests instead of just creating instances that might be specific to one customer’s needs. Core Informatics created an incredibly flexible system, one that takes into account the patterns across the industries so that the system can absorb these requests from customers in a configurable way versus customisable.’ Flexibility was a key focus for Perkin Elmer.


Madden explained that cloud models allow for updates to be rolled out almost instantly. This allows cloud informatics vendors to add value on a more regular basis than was previously possible. Madden concluded: ‘Another benefit of


the cloud we have noticed is that in terms of software development, we would typically release a new software package every 6-9 months, but that is not the case with the cloud. You are able to pass along those added value features, updates, new developments and even new functionality, and instead of every few months, you can do it every few weeks with a cloud deployment.’l


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