The rational storage of biological data is the issue that is always around. It is not only about large data sizes, but also about the requirement of simultaneous access to them by several scientists. For example, a few researchers from a lab may need to work on the same data, like a set of primers or data produced by sequencing. That information has to be updated and synchronized between different users and kept in a common storage. Some notable implementations of such systems already exist (for example, CLC Bioinformatics Database or Geneious Shared Database), but they are proprietary and quite expensive. Thus, in this UGENE version we have introduced a new functionality – a shared bioinformatics storage. So far, it is represented by an ordinary database (currently we support only MySQL). To start sharing data via UGENE users only need to deploy a public database server. After that any UGENE user can connect to it and access the stored information, add new objects or delete existed ones. In fact, from the user’s point of view the shared database looks like a usual file opened by UGENE. The entire content of the database can be viewed exactly the same way as if the data were located on a local computer. Objects in the database can be ordered using a folder mechanism as well as moved between folders, other connected databases and local documents using conventional drag’n’drop. The UGENE instance, in turn, constantly monitors the state of the database and shows changes, made by other users.
For details see the documentation below: