The Case of Extreme Scientists Discussion

THE CASE OF EXTREME SCIENTISTS

THE CASE OF EXTREME SCIENTISTS

Scientists doing research often need serious computing capability to run simulations

and crunch data. Often that meant working for a large company who could provide the

significant investment in information systems infrastructure. But cloud computing

changed all that. Consider the case of biologist Dr. Eric Schadt, a researcher who

claims that approaches to studying the complexity of living systems have failed.

Studying one gene at a time doesn’t explain what causes diseases, making it

impossible to find the cures sought by the scientific and pharmacology communities.

Dr. Schadt’s vision is to manage this area of research, and the large amount of data

generated, which appears to be too much for any one individual or company to manage,

by creating a human social network. Dr. Schadt believes this organization reflects

the complexity of the living systems he studies, and therefore it’s necessary to

understand it.


Dr. Schadt cofounded a nonprofit organization dedicated to biological research using

an open-source sharing of data, called Sage Bionetworks. He deeply believes that

sharing is the key to finding cures, and creating drugs, that will combat diseases.

And his company has millions of dollars worth of data from some of the major

pharmaceutical companies to use to begin their research. But by day, he’s the Chief

Scientific Officer of a start up, Pacific Biosciences, whose technology helps

biologists look at individual molecules of DNA in real-time. His job is to work on

how to use this technology for PacBio and to collaborate with others who want to use

this technology for their research. So he travels a lot. But to do his research, he

needs access to the capacity of a supercomputer since the amount of data he needs to

use for his research is very large.
With the use of the Web, he’s able to do his work anyplace. Planes are especially

favored because he has significant uninterrupted time. According to one article

about Dr. Schadt,
“He has the same access to supercomputers that every other American with an Internet

connection and a credit card has. He waits till the plane climbs to a cruising

altitude, then when allowed to use electronic devices, he uses the plane’s WiFi to

get on Amazon.”
Dr. Schadt is able to initiate a complex analysis of his data using Amazon’s

services, which crunch the data while Dr. Schadt flies across the country. When he

lands, the analysis is done and he has the results. This world be equivalent to the

computing power of a scientist working on his company’s multimillion dollar

supercomputer, but in this case, the cost is just a few hundred dollars.
Companies like Amazon.com have become vendors of extreme computing power. Some have

compared the amount of computing power Dr. Schadt uses while flying on an airplane

to the amount of computing power available to a scientist at major pharmaceutical

companies, where they have multimillion dollar supercomputers. With services like

the computing power available in the cloud, Dr. Schadt may even have more power

available to him than the scientist.

Case Questions
Answer the following questions, which represent the specific critical elements that

must be addressed for this assignment:


1.     How would you describe the architecture Dr. Schadt uses to do his research?
2.    What are the risks Dr. Schadt faces by using Amazon for his supercomputing?

What are the benefits?
3.     Advice: If you were advising a company trying to make a decision about

using cloud computing for key business applications, what would you advise and why?
4.    Research: Incorporate external research to support your position.

Guidelines for Submission: The case study must follow these guidelines: double

spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, one-inch margins, and APA citations. Page-

length requirements: two or three pages, not including cover page and references.
Answer preview……….

How would you describe the architecture Dr. Schadt uses to do his research?

Dr. Schadt uses a web-based architecture or rather service-oriented architecture (SOA). This category of design offers the user with tractability, and most of the data and computing capacities get done over the internet. Moreover, the fact that he can have extra processing capability by remunerating a fee indicates that the architecture is cloud computing or virtualization technology for his research. This type of technology remains commonly based upon the web services considering the theory of virtualization. Dr. Schadt also applies the Amazon Services as a third-party to route the facts and then evaluate the data to provide the results when flying across the country. This technology syndicates SaaS, IaaS and PaaS,..

 APA 891 words

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