Japan’s National Institute of Genetics (NIG) has deployed Aspera’s web-based Connect Server to facilitate international research collaboration for high-throughput DNA sequencing and large-scale data analysis. NIG operates multiple entities including the Bioresources Center, DNA Data Bank of Japan (DDBJ) and DNA Sequencing Center, and genetic research at the facilities generates massive data sets of up to 20GB each.
The data sets need to be distributed and exchanged with other scientists and existing Aspera partners, such as the European Bioinformatics Institute and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, on a daily basis. NIG found FTP file transfer and physically shipping hard drives to be too unreliable, time consuming and expensive, so implemented Aspera’s high-speed fasp transport technology.
The Aspera Connect Server transfers large data between NIG and its worldwide partners. Researchers can browse the data they need to access via a web-based directory and an install-on-demand browser plug-in enables high-speed uploads and downloads transparently from within the user’s browser.
