Data centre shutdown for green power source upgrade
The switch-off, only the third since its commissioning in early 2005, is to allow a new greener and more sustainable power source to be attached to the data centre, helping to secure a long-term future of uninterrupted service for the worldwide research community.
The data centre, located at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, holds computing resources for both the Sanger Institute and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI). It provides valuable genetic and genomic data to more than 97,000 visitors in more than 150 countries every week.
During the shutdown some Genome Campus-hosted website / bioinformatic resources may be unavailable. Most EMBL-EBI services will be unaffected, and mirror sites exist for many Sanger Institute services. A listing of affected resources and available mirrors can be found at the end of this article.
“We regret the inconvenience to all the researchers worldwide who access our data but we believe that the work will make our services more resilient. This new system will help to reduce our power consumption and ensure a reliable, uninterrupted supply. The more we are able to employ internal, sustainable systems for energy generation, the more we are able to ensure a long-term, stable delivery of data to the research community.”
Phil Butcher Head of IT at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
The new system, known as a combined cooling, heating and power unit or CCHP, is a highly efficient miniature electricity power station that will drastically reduce the data centre’s carbon footprint. It employs ‘trigeneration’ to produce electricity and uses the excess heat generated to drive the centre’s heating and cooling systems. In addition, further energy savings will come from the close proximity of the CCHP to the data centre, which will minimise energy lost from transmission through power lines.
The approach is not new: Thomas Edison tried out a similar system in 1882. He used the excess heat generated at his electricity power station to heat homes and supply steam to factories in the Lower Manhattan area of New York.
“We’re taking the same idea to allow us to provide electricity, heat and cooling to the data centre’s 12 petabytes of storage capacity and 15,000 cores of compute.”
David Davison Campus Director, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus
The more efficient use of energy in the data centre will help to protect the research community from the vagaries of a fluctuating energy market, both in terms of price and delivery.
“We are keen to ensure that we can supply a long-term, reliable and sustainable service to the research community. By setting up our systems so that they are as efficient as possible and consume the minimum of externally-sourced electricity, we can continue to provide open-source life science data for the benefit of researchers worldwide.”
Janet Thornton Director of EMBL-EBI
Available mirrors
| Ensembl | |
|---|---|
| Ensembl (Asia) | http://asia.ensembl.org/ |
| Ensembl (US East) | http://useast.ensembl.org/ |
| Ensembl (US West) | http://uswest.ensembl.org/ |
| Xfam | |
|---|---|
| Pfam (US) | http://pfam.janelia.org/ |
| Pfam (Sweden) | http://pfam.sbc.su.se/ |
| Rfam (US) | http://rfam.janelia.org/ |
| Worm resources | |
|---|---|
| WormBase (US) | http://www.wormbase.org/ |
| WormBook (US) | http://www.wormbook.org/ |
Sites and services that may be unavailable
| Main Sanger Domain | |
|---|---|
| Main site | https://www.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| Cosmic | https://www.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic/ |
| HTGT | https://www.sanger.ac.uk/htgt/ |
| Mouse Resources Portal | https://www.sanger.ac.uk/resources/mouse/mouseportal.html |
| Sanger Subdomains | |
|---|---|
| AnnoTrack | http://annotrack.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| DECIPHER | https://www.deciphergenomics.org/ |
| MEROPS | http://merops.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| Pfam | http://pfam.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| Rfam | http://rfam.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| RT system | https://rt.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| VEGA | http://vega.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| WormBook | http://wormbook.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| WormBase | http://wormbase.sanger.ac.uk/ |
| Ensembl Domain | |
|---|---|
| Ensembl | http://www.ensembl.org/ |
| Pre Ensembl | http://pre.ensembl.org/ |
| PGP viewer | http://pgpviewer.ensembl.org/ |
| Ensembl Projects | http://projects.ensembl.org/ |
| Project and Consortium websites | |
|---|---|
| AceDB | http://www.acedb.org/ |
| African Partnership for Chronic Disease Research | http://www.apcdr.org/ |
| arcOGEN | http://www.arcogen.org.uk/ |
| BASIS | http://www.basisproject.eu/ |
| The DAS Registry | http://www.dasregistry.org/ |
| DDD | http://www.ddduk.org/ |
| GENCODE | http://www.gencodegenes.org/ |
| GeneDB | http://www.genedb.org/ |
| Pathogen Genomics Pathways DB | http://pathways.genedb.org/ |
| Genes to Cognition | http://www.genes2cognition.org/ |
| Hinxton Courses and Conferences | http://www.hinxton.org/ |
| International Data Coordination Centre | http://www.i-dcc.org/ |
| IBD Genetics Consortium | http://www.ibdgenetics.org/ |
| MAGIC | http://www.magicinvestigators.org/ |
| TreeFam | http://www.treefam.org/ |
| UK10K | http://www.uk10k.org/ |
| WTCCC | http://www.wtccc.org.uk/ |
| YourGenome | http://www.yourgenome.org/ |
More information
Selected websites
The European Bioinformatics Institute
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and is located on the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton near Cambridge (UK). The EBI grew out of EMBL’s pioneering work in providing public biological databases to the research community. It hosts some of the world’s most important collections of biological data, including DNA sequences (ENA), protein sequences (UniProt), animal genomes (Ensembl), 3D structures (the Protein Databank in Europe), data from gene expression experiments (ArrayExpress), protein-protein interactions (IntAct) and pathway information (Reactome). The EBI hosts several research groups and its scientists continually develop new tools for the biocomputing community. EMBL-EBI is coordinating ELIXIR, a pan-European research infrastructure for biological information.
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is one of the world’s leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally. Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease.
The Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. We support the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. Our breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. We are independent of both political and commercial interests.
