Genome4U is a scientific research project at a large university in the United States. Genome4U has recently started a large-scale project to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers with a goal of creating a set of publicly accessible databases with human genomic, trait, and medical data.
The project's founder, a brilliant man with many talents and interests, tells you that the public databases will provide information to the world's scientific community in general, not just those interested in medical research. Genome4U is trying not to prejudge how the data will be used because there may be opportunities for interconnections and correlations that computers can find that people might have missed. The founder envisions clusters of servers that will be accessible by researchers all over the world. The databases will be used by end users to study their own genetic heritage, with the help of their doctors and genetic counsellors. In addition, the data will be used by computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists, social scientists, and other researchers.
The genome for a single human consists of complementary DNA strands wound together in a double helix. The strands hold 6 billion base pairs of nucleotides connected by hydrogen bonds. To store the research data, 1 byte of capacity is used for each base pair.
As a result, 6 GB of data capacity is needed to store the genetic information of just one person. The project plans to use network-attached storage (NAS) clusters. In addition to genetic information, the project will ask volunteers to provide detailed information about their traits so that researchers can find correlations between traits and genes. Volunteers will also provide their medical records. Storage will be required for these data sets and the raw nucleotide data.
You have been brought in as a network design consultant to help the Genome4U project.
Questions:
1. List the major user communities.
2. List the major data stores and the user communities for each data store.
3. Characterize the network traffic in terms of flow, load, behaviour, and QoS requirements. You will not be able to precisely characterize the traffic but provide some theories about it and document the types of tests you would conduct to prove your theories right or wrong.
4. What additional questions would you ask Genome4U's founder about this project? Who besides the founder would you talk to and what questions would you ask them?