Server Configurations for Bioinformatics

[Sriniwoods]

Hi,

I am planning to establish a NGS facility in a Hospital segment. This would involve analysing data for exomes, various panels and metagenomics.

What would be the best server configurations? Do HP, Dell and IBM play an important role here?

Thank you,

Srinivas

[GenoMax]

Is there an existing IT infrastructure you can tap into in terms of storage/compute? Having access to that may save you the hassle of system administration/security etc and leave you free to do science.

If you are looking to establish this from ground up then you would need to think about hiring at least one systems admin to take care of things. A small cluster (~ 10 nodes, no need to get the fastest CPU but with as much RAM as your budget will allow for on each node), adequate enterprise storage (start in 10-30 TB range, not consumer grade drives) and a reliable data backup system to address data integrity/compliance needs.

While you can build your own (and perhaps save some money) I would not recommend doing it here since patient data/care is involved. Any of the big vendors you mention will have offerings that should be more or less comparable in cost. Which one you select may depend on other intangible factors (such as pre-existing business relationships).

There are cloud based options for most of these things but that option may not be viable for you depending on policies (security and otherwise) at your hospital.