Optimising Scientific Workflow Execution Using Desktops, Clusters and Clouds

Scientific Gateways are one of the most important tools for designing and running experiments. Despite the possibility of local operation they are mainly available via online interfaces based on cloud computing instances. Our studies show that cloud machines may not be the best solution to every situation and that the advantages of heterogeneous cluster machines should be considered in scheduling experiments, saving both financial and computational resources, avoiding network delays and managing the infrastructure as needed. We run a variety of scenarios of bioinformatic experiments in three different sets of machines, a workstation, a cluster and cloud platform. Then, using Support Vector Machines (SVM), a nonlinear regression technique over the results, we can define the best machine configuration in terms of processing time according to the input parameters. The results show an approximation with a small error, that can define with good confidence the proper infrastructure to host a instance of the framework Galaxy, used as study case. With a system based on diverse environments, the researchers can properly schedule each set of experiments.