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Bioinformatics Advance Access published online on November 23, 2007
Bioinformatics, doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btm570
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© 2007 The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Automatic Synchronization and Distribution of Biological Databases and Software over Low-Bandwidth Networks among Developing Countries

Unitsa Sangket 1,*, Amornrat Phongdara 1, Wilaiwan Chotigeat 1, Darran Nathan 2, Woo-Yeon Kim 3, Jong Bhak 3, Chumpol Ngamphiw 4, Sissades Tongsima 4, Asif M. Khan 5, Honghuang Lin 5 and Tin Wee Tan 2,5

1Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics Research, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand, 2Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Network, 3Korean BioInformation Center (KOBIC), KRIBB, Korea, 4Biostatistics and Informatics Lab., Genome Institute, National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Thailand and 5Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Unitsa Sangket, E-mail: usangket{at}yahoo.com


  Abstract

Summary: Bioinformatics involves the collection, organization, and analysis of large amounts of biological data, using networks of computers and databases. Developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region are just moving into this new field of information-based biotechnology. However, the computational infrastructure and network bandwidths available in these countries are still at a basic level compared to that in developed countries. In this study, we assessed the utility of a BitTorrent-based Peer-to-Peer (btP2P) file distribution model for automatic synchronization and distribution of large amounts of biological data among developing countries. The initial country-level nodes in the Asia-Pacific region comprised Thailand, Korea, and Singapore. The results showed a significant improvement in download performance using btP2P - three times faster overall download performance than conventional File Transfer Protocol (FTP). This study demonstrated the reliability of btP2P in the dissemination of continuously growing multi-gigabyte biological databases across the three Asia-Pacific countries. The download performance for btP2P can be further improved by including more nodes from other countries into the network. This suggests that the btP2P technology is appropriate for automatic synchronization and distribution of biological databases and software over low-bandwidth networks among developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Availability: http://everest.bic.nus.edu.sg/p2p/

Contact: usangket{at}yahoo.com

Associate Editor: Prof. John Quackenbush

Received on July 4, 2007; revised on October 9, 2007; accepted on November 10, 2007

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