Cloud computing resources

Google Cloud Platform offers a provides virtual machines, pipelines, and storage, among others, that overlaps somewhat with the local OMRF cluster but allows us to customize and scale to our own needs.

Virtual machines

The Google Cloud Compute provides the ability to run virtual machines, which can function nearly the same as a desktop workstation. Unlike a local workstation, however, the VMs can be reconfigured to provide more than 1 TB of RAM and > 100 CPUs.

To improve reproducability and promote agility, the VMs use Docker_ images. The current set of images are found at in the control docker <https://gitlab.com/guthridge_informatics/control> repository on Gitlab.