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Hi Gareth-<div><br></div><div>Thanks for your email.</div><div><br><div><div>On 24 Jul 2008, at 10:38, Gareth Howell wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><p><font size="2" face="Arial">Dear all</font> </p><p><font size="2" face="Arial">I have a few hardware questions regarding the OME.</font></p></blockquote><div>Happy to help. The answers below pertain to OMERO, the data management system released by the OME Consortium. For more info on OMERO, see the screencast videos at </div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; "><a href="http://www.openmicroscopy.org/site/videos">http://www.openmicroscopy.org/site/videos</a></span></div><div><br></div><div>However, the comments below also pertain to the OME Server.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><p><font size="2" face="Arial"> </font> </p><p><font size="2" face="Arial">We are thinking of applying for support to set up a server to store images collected within our bioimaging facility, but unfortunately have no experience of how to select servers. What servers do people use? Are they lab based or do you use them to collect and store data from a whole facility? What sort of memory capacity would you suggest (we have a Delta Vision, and two LSM510 systems)?</font></p></blockquote><div>The way to think about this is to consider the number of users, and the amount of data collected. Those numbers roughly translate into the kind of server you should buy and the kind and amount of storage you should try to purchase.</div><div><br></div><div>For our production server, we are using a Dell PowerEdge 2970:</div><div><br></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><a href="http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pedge_2970_rack?c=us&l=en&s=biz&cs=555">http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/pedge_2970_rack?c=us&l=en&s=biz&cs=555</a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica">config'd as dual quad-core, with 8 GB RAM (I think). (We have no affiliation with Dell, we also have IBM, Sun, and Compaq boxes-- we just buy what is best value at the time we need to buy).</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica">That covers about 40 users, and about 10 concurrent users, quite easily, and was quite reasonably priced.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica">For storage, you really need to consider how much data you generate and store, so you need to spend a few mins thinking about your next 5 years (also remember, for example BBSRC's data of holding all data for 10 years).</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica">Make a reasonable estimate of the amount of data you will store, and how that scales for the next few years. Then decide what kind of backup you'll want-- you can trawl around the web abit to find all sorts of opinions on what you'll need (it's one of those areas where everyone is an expert). Most importantly, develop some strategy for storing the data semi-resiliently (i.e, RAID) and include a provision for backup (we like having a fully off-line back-up on tape, others will tell you that is not necessary).</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Then decide how the costs you can consider match what is available. If you have a good IT person at Leeds, talk to them-- they can help you with all the terminology. If at all possible, enlist their interest and support early-- ideally, you'll need power, space, and cooling for all this stuff and they can help.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">However, a lab's needs could easily be solved by a reasonably powered desktop server, an attached disk, and some low level backup. Anyone on the list have a low level solution like this working?</div></div><blockquote type="cite"><p><font size="2" face="Arial"> </font></p><p><font size="2" face="Arial">Finally, if you were applying for grant support to set this up what 'bases' would you try and cover (I guess that is quite a big question! Sorry!!)</font></p></blockquote><div>Not sure, but all of the major UK funding bodies now ask specifically for a sound, articulated data management strategy. </div><div><br></div><div>OMERO doesn't do anything specifically about storage-- that is a disk's job. OMERO provides data management-- visualization, analysis, tagging, annotation, linking, etc. I guess you want to hit those buttons.</div><blockquote type="cite"><p><font size="2" face="Arial">I'm clearly missing some vital information so any help would be much appreciated!</font> </p></blockquote><div>I'm happy to discuss off-line if you want. I'm away from office a wee while-- email me and we can set up a time to chat.</div><blockquote type="cite"><p><br><font size="2" face="Arial">Apologies in advance for my ignorance!</font></p></blockquote><div>Not at all-- this stuff is tricky.</div><div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div><br></div><div>Jason</div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">**************************</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation & Expression</font></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">College of Life Sciences</font></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">MSI/WTB/JBC Complex</font></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">University of Dundee</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Dow Street</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Dundee DD1 5EH</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">United Kingdom</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><br style="font-family: Helvetica; "></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">phone (01382) 385819</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Intl phone: 44 1382 385819 </span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">FAX (01382) 388072 </span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">email: <a href="mailto:jason@lifesci.dundee.ac.uk">jason@lifesci.dundee.ac.uk</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><br style="font-family: Helvetica; "></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Lab Page: <a href="http://www.dundee.ac.uk/lifesciences/swedlow/">http://www.dundee.ac.uk/lifesciences/swedlow/</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Open Microscopy Environment: <a href="http://openmicroscopy.org">http://openmicroscopy.org</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">**************************</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; "><div>The University of Dundee is a Scottish Registered Charity, No. SC015096.</div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></div></body></html>