Frontiers in Neuroinformatics (Feb 2022)

The Brain Observatory Storage Service and Database (BossDB): A Cloud-Native Approach for Petascale Neuroscience Discovery

  • Robert Hider,
  • Dean Kleissas,
  • Timothy Gion,
  • Daniel Xenes,
  • Jordan Matelsky,
  • Derek Pryor,
  • Luis Rodriguez,
  • Erik C. Johnson,
  • William Gray-Roncal,
  • Brock Wester

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2022.828787
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16

Abstract

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Technological advances in imaging and data acquisition are leading to the development of petabyte-scale neuroscience image datasets. These large-scale volumetric datasets pose unique challenges since analyses often span the entire volume, requiring a unified platform to access it. In this paper, we describe the Brain Observatory Storage Service and Database (BossDB), a cloud-based solution for storing and accessing petascale image datasets. BossDB provides support for data ingest, storage, visualization, and sharing through a RESTful Application Programming Interface (API). A key feature is the scalable indexing of spatial data and automatic and manual annotations to facilitate data discovery. Our project is open source and can be easily and cost effectively used for a variety of modalities and applications, and has effectively worked with datasets over a petabyte in size.

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