Building & Empowering African Bioinformatics
Tools & Services
Computing Infrastructure
H3ABioNet has several initiatives to further the aim of increasing bioinformatics research capacity on the African continent by providing access to computing infrastructure for data transfer, storage and processing.
Data transfers
Transferring the large datasets typical in current genomics research poses its own challenges in the African context. Network speeds, reliability, costs and even latency are challenging.
Globus Online
For transfers between larger institutions we use Globus online, and have set up almost 20 Globus Endpoints across H3ABioNet.
Netmap
Often the network speeds to the final destination is not as performant as to the institution's edge. To test network speed between the infrastructure of our nodes, and monitor improvement we have a project called Netmap, that captures TCP throughput between nodes.
Physical transfers
Sometimes transfers of data is still most efficient via Sneakernet (using portable hard drives). Our biggest single transfer so far was of 140TB. If you need assistance with a data transfer open a ticket on the helpdesk.
Node hardware
High Performance Computing in Africa
