Labfolder, a Berlin-based startup that developed an electronic lab notebook that makes it easier for scientists to record their findings and make new discoveries has announced a new collaboration agreement with NEC Deutschland, a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies.
Both companies address the needs of large research institutions by providing the IT infrastructure needed to manage their valuable data. This has increasingly become a hot topic for scientific research institutions: scientists have now predicted for a number of years that genomics - the field of sequencing human DNA - will soon become one of the largest sources of data in the world. It is estimated that within the next decade, genomics alone will generate between 2 and 40 billion gigabytes a year. Such large quantities of data create major challenges to storing, managing and sharing the generated data.
NEC and Labfolder have partnered up to provide a simple, cost-effective and scalable package solution to this problem. NEC provides the hardware, Labfolder the software.
NEC offers research institutions a dockerised IBM Spectrum Scale implementation of its GxFS Storage Appliance, which can start from 30 TB and scales to 100+ PB. The design of the GxFS Storage Appliance was focused on data integrity with the use of mature components such as SANtricity-based SNA800 storage systems. Dr. Heiko Schäffer of NEC stated: "The new GxFS system enables research organisations to achieve market-leading availability, performance and security."
Labfolder provides research data management software in the form of a digital lab notebook, supporting scientists in their quest to make groundbreaking scientific discoveries. lts software as a service makes it easier to record, retrieve, share, discuss and validate research data as a team. "Labfolder is used by more than 20,000 academic, industrial and pharmaceutical scientists in research and development (R&D), analysis, and production labs," said Dr. Florian Hauer, co-founder and CPO of labfolder.
"Labfolder's platform, together with NEC GxFS Storage Appliance, allows laboratories to optimise their data management processes. The ability to handle big data in science has become a key challenge of size and complexity," affirms Dr. Hauer. Schäffer, calling the partnership between NEC and labfolder "a large value driver for research institutions."
