Automatic synchronization and distribution of biological databases and software over low-bandwidth networks among developing countries

Abstract

Summary: Bioinformatics involves the collection, organization and analysis of large amounts of biological data, using networks of computers and databases. Developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region are just moving into this new field of information-based biotechnology. However, the computational infrastructure and network bandwidths available in these countries are still at a basic level compared to that in developed countries. In this study, we assessed the utility of a BitTorrent-based Peer-to-Peer (btP2P) file distribution model for automatic synchronization and distribution of large amounts of biological data among developing countries. The initial country-level nodes in the Asia-Pacific region comprised Thailand, Korea and Singapore. The results showed a significant improvement in download performance using btP2P-three times faster overall download performance than conventional File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This study demonstrated the reliability of btP2P in the dissemination of continuously growing multi-gigabyte biological databases across the three Asia-Pacific countries. The download performance for btP2P can be further improved by including more nodes from other countries into the network. This suggests that the btP2P technology is appropriate for automatic synchronization and distribution of biological databases and software over low-bandwidth networks among developing countries in the AsiaPacific region.

Distribution of biological databases over low-bandwidth networks

“…Results obtained from this study support the findings of Sangket et al . [12] who compared the downloading performance between FTP and btP2P on different subnets among developing countries. Most of the databases use FTP protocol and as Bitcomet client supports both FTP and torrent, it may offer a better choice.…”

“…BitTorrent is a popular P2P application that aims to avoid bottleneck of FTP servers while delivering large and popular files [11]. An earlier communication has clearly shown the better performance of btP2P protocol than traditional FTP for automatically synchronizing large amounts of biological databases across the three countries of Asia-Pacific region [12]. However, they have compared FTP and P2P file sharing applications using Azureus as a Bit Torrent representative.…”

The Study on Business Ecosystem Analysis based on the Big Data Environment

“…The market can be understood if it expands to surrounding the platform and software. The flow of the strategy between eco system subjects and the big data market should be looked by providing a big data service, being provided and expanding to the interaction between the subjects connecting this [11].…”

Bioinformatics clouds for big data manipulation

“…In June 2012, BGI succeeded in transferring genomic data across the Pacific Ocean at a sustained rate of almost 10 Gigabits per second (http://www.bio-itworld.com/news/06/29/12/Data-tsunami-BGI-transfers-genomic-data-Pacific-10-gigabits-second.html), demonstrating that high-speed transfer technologies (such as Aspera’s fasp) are capable of dealing with big data transfers over the Web. Aside from high-speed transfer technologies, there are other technologies that can also aid big data transfer, such as data compression [35,36] and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) data distribution [37,38]. …”