The Computational Metagenomics Group (IBG-5) at Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) is dedicated to bioinformatics research activities with a focus on the interdisciplinary sequencing and analysis of meta-genomes. In particular, the focus is on the use of cloud computing technologies to analyze particularly large amounts of data and to support various applications in the life sciences and biomedicine. The IBG-5 integrates service and infrastructure networks at both national and international level in order to make automated data analysis easier and more efficient for the scientific community and users.
t national level, IBG-5 manages the German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure - de.NBI, which was founded in 2015 as a BMBF joint project. Here, it coordinates the work of the 24 partner institutions and develops strategies for open access offerings in the areas of tools, software, databases, data management and consulting for the life sciences. At international level, IBG-5 coordinates the national node "ELIXIR Germany" established by the BMBF as part of the European bioinformatics infrastructure ELIXIR (European Life Science Infrastructure for Biological Information), an intergovernmental organization that brings together life science resources such as databases, software tools, training and educational materials as well as cloud storage from all over Europe.
In addition, IBG-5 coordinates the de.NBI Cloud and, in cooperation with Bielefeld University, operates at the Bielefeld site, as one of eight cloud locations nationwide, a comprehensive cloud computing infrastructure with connected software solutions for processing large amounts of data, such as public data repositories mirrored from EBI/ENA in an object storage. These include bioinformatics workflows using modular, containerized applications, frameworks as well as interfaces for simplified access to cloud resources, their configuration, management and utilization. For instance via BiBiGrid, for automated orchestration of HPC environments within the de.NBI Cloud, or SimpleVM, with the help of which virtual machines can be adapted and managed in a few simple steps and various applications can be started directly. These can also be used for the organization and implementation of training courses, as has already been done for the numerous de.NBI courses on topics such as "Data Science", "Metagenomics" and "Cloud Computing", but also on a larger scale for summer schools, as a component of Carpentry courses, for courses during the annual rotating Cloud User Meeting, or for cloud-based self-learning formats and online training courses. The de.NBI Cloud at the Bielefeld site also implements an ISO 27001-certified IT security management system to ensure data security and integrity through technical and organizational measures.