RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Neuroscience Cloud Analysis As a Service
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.06.11.146746
DO 10.1101/2020.06.11.146746
A1 Taiga Abe
A1 Ian Kinsella
A1 Shreya Saxena
A1 E. Kelly Buchanan
A1 Joao Couto
A1 John Briggs
A1 Sian Lee Kitt
A1 Ryan Glassman
A1 John Zhou
A1 Liam Paninski
A1 John P. Cunningham
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/06/03/2020.06.11.146746.abstract
AB A major goal of computational neuroscience is the development of powerful data analyses that operate on large datasets. These analyses form an essential toolset to derive scientific insights from new experiments. Unfortunately, a major obstacle currently impedes progress: novel data analyses have a hidden dependence upon complex computing infrastructure (e.g. software dependencies, hardware), acting as an unaddressed deterrent to potential analysis users. While existing analyses are increasingly shared as open source software, the infrastructure needed to deploy these analyses – at scale, reproducibly, cheaply, and quickly – remains totally inaccessible to all but a minority of expert users. In this work we develop Neuroscience Cloud Analysis As a Service (NeuroCAAS): a fully automated analysis platform that makes state-of-the-art data analysis tools accessible to the neuroscience community. Based on modern large-scale computing advances, NeuroCAAS is an open source platform with a drag-and-drop interface, entirely removing the burden of infrastructure purchase, configuration, deployment, and maintenance from analysis users and developers alike. NeuroCAAS offers two major scientific benefits to any data analysis. First, NeuroCAAS provides automatic reproducibility of analyses at no extra effort to the analysis developer or user. Second, NeuroCAAS cleanly separates tool implementation from usage, allowing for immediate use of arbitrarily complex analyses, at scale. We show how these benefits drive the design of simpler, more powerful data analyses. Furthermore, we show that many popular data analysis tools offered through NeuroCAAS outperform typical analysis solutions (in terms of speed and cost) while improving ease of use, dispelling the myth that cloud compute is prohibitively expensive and technically inaccessible. By removing barriers to fast, efficient cloud computation, NeuroCAAS can dramatically accelerate both the dissemination and the effective use of cutting-edge analysis tools for neuroscientific discovery.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.