Has someone asked you to join a BioCoRE project? If so, you don't need to run a server to do this. You can simply use the same BioCoRE server that they are using. Contact them and ask them for details.
Are you just wanting to "play around" with BioCoRE? If so, we suggest that you use our server at this website to see whether or not BioCoRE is right for you.
If you just want to try out BioCoRE and use our server, you can connect to it by going to our homepage and clicking the New User link in the left hand column.
Running your own server does have some advantages. Access to the server should be extremely fast since you have the server locally. If you have the BioCoRE server talking to local computational machines your job management submissions should execute quicker, and you have more customizability if you are running your own server.
The installation process for setting up a BioCoRE server takes some
time (an hour or so, minimum) and we so assume some Unix "know-how"
(ie., we might not always tell you to chmod 644 file.
We might just say to "make sure that everyone can read the file".)
BioCoRE servers run on Unix machines. It should be possible to install a server without root permission, but we haven't tried yet. So, we suggest a Unix machine that you have root access on. (If you don't run as root, you certainly won't be able to access your machine on the standard http and https ports. You'll have to use a high port)
For everything to work properly, the BioCoRE server can't be behind a super restrictive firewall. The server needs to be able to accept connections on the standard http ports (80 and 443) as well as dynamically-determined high ports. (The server will open a socket connection allowing BioCoRE control panels to connect to it. This socket will be on a high port ( >1023). In addition, the machine where the server is running must be able to connection to ks.uiuc.edu. If the machine is behind an outbound firewall that restricts access to https machines on the internet, it won't work.
You need to install on a flavor of Unix that has Java 1.4+ available. Most do, but there are a few flavors out there that don't yet support Java 1.4+.
You will need a couple hundred megabytes of disk space for installation, and more for data and files once you have the server up and running.
Once the server is set up, maintenance time required is pretty small.
The server you install on will need to have continuous access to the Internet to really be useful.
For serious installs, we really suggest that you get a secure web site certificate so that users can access your system using HTTPS in as easy a manner as possible. True secure web site certificates cost money (in excess of $100US per year). You don't need this to try out the BioCoRE server, but it should be a consideration when your number of users reaches a certain point.
If you want to install a local server, the local server page has information.
Feedback
The BioCoRE team welcomes any comments, questions, or suggestions that you might have concerning our software! Please email us or fill out our feedback form.
