Cloud-Based Computing Architectures for Solving Hot Issues in Structural Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics as a scientific domain develops tools that enable understanding the wealth of information hidden in huge volumes of biological data. However, there are several problems in bioinformatics that, although already solved or at least equipped with promising algorithms, still require huge computing power in order to be completed in a reasonable time. Cloud computing responds to these demands. This chapter shows several cloud-based computing architectures for solving hot issues in structural bioinformatics, such as protein structure similarity searching or 3D protein structure prediction. Presented architectures have been implemented in Microsoft Azure public cloud and tested in several projects developed by Cloud4Proteins research group.