Cloud service checklist for academic communities and customization for genome medical research

• Published in: Human genome variation Vol. 9; no. 1; p. 36
• Main Authors: Kobayashi, Kumiko, Yoshida, Hiroshi, Tanjo, Tomoya, Aida, Kento
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17-10-2022; Springer Nature B.V; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/114; 692/308; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Check lists; Cloud computing; Data storage; Gene Expression; Gene Function; Gene Therapy; Genomes; Genomics; Human Genetics; Informatics; Medical research; Molecular Medicine; Motivation; Researchers; Review; Review Article
• ISSN: 2054-345X; 2054-345X
• DOI: 10.1038/s41439-022-00214-9

In this paper, we present a cloud service checklist designed to help IT administrators or researchers in academic organizations select the most suitable cloud services. This checklist, which comprises items that we believe IT administrators or researchers in academic organizations should consider when they adopt cloud services, comprehensively covers the issues related to a variety of cloud services, including security, functionality, performance, and law. In response to the increasing demands for storage and computing resources in genome medical science communities, various guidelines for using resources operated by external organizations, such as cloud services, have been published by different academic funding agencies and the Japanese government. However, it is sometimes difficult to identify the checklist items that satisfy the genome medical science community’s guidelines, and some of these requirements are not included in the existing checklists. This issue provided our motivation for creating a cloud service checklist customized for genome medical research communities. The resulting customized checklist is designed to help researchers easily find information about the cloud services that satisfy the guidelines in genome medical science communities. Additionally, we explore whether many cloud service providers satisfy the requirements or checklist items in the cloud service checklist for genome medical research by evaluating their survey responses.
Data storage: Cloud services checklist for medical genomics researchers
Criteria that will help researchers and IT administrators choose cloud service providers appropriate for the medical genomics research field have been formulated. Researchers collect and analyze increasingly large amounts of data, making cloud services essential. Although some guidelines have been published, security concerns make many researchers who handle sensitive data hesitant to adopt cloud services. Kumiko Kobayashi at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo, Japan, and co-workers have published a cloud services checklist customized for genome medical researchers that addresses concerns of security, functionality, performance, and law. Issues such as security (physical and encryption), disaster recovery, data deletion assurance, and laws governing disputes (for cloud services companies in different countries) are covered. This checklist should help researchers choose appropriate cloud services and improve access to big data services.