Tilte: Introduction to FireCloud by Terra
Presenters: Dr.Robert Majovski, Lead Educator
Dr.Anton Kovalsky, Scientific Writer
Data Sciences Platform, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Abstract: FireCloud Powered by Terra (firecloud.terra.bio) is one of the NCI Cloud Resources, offering fully customizable data analysis for users of all levels. The platform contains a rich system of workspace functionalities centered on data sharing and analysis. Researchers use FireCloud to perform a variety of analyses through two main mechanisms: batch workflow execution and interactive analysis, including data visualization. Workflow execution is achieved through a workflow management system called Cromwell, which is designed to be highly portable, capable of connecting to multiple computing platforms, and scalable. Interactive analysis is achieved through Jupyter notebooks, Galaxy, or RStudio, all of which can run on a range of configurable runtime environments and incorporate various kernels and packages to support exploratory analyses of arbitrary scale and complexity. Additionally, FireCloud has over 1,900 publicly available workflows or “methods,” as they are called within the platform, with the ability to port more methods from Dockstore. In this session, we will introduce you to FireCloud and familiarize you with how to find data, access analysis tools, and collaborate securely.