Architecture for Web based research management

Client-server architecture

SPMP is designed according to the client-server architecture. A user works with a client application, which is responsible for uploading input data for a computation task, setting computation parameters and presenting computation results. Client application can run on any PC.

SPMP server is responsible for execution of computation tasks and managing users' computation data. SPMP server application runs on a server machine which usually is a cluster of PCs.

Web-based GUI

There is a web application which can be used as a SPMP client. It means that you have a graphical user interface available from a web browser. You don't need to install the client application. Any PC with a browser and Java installed can be used to play with the system, if allowed by your administrator to connect to the PMP server. Using the SPMP web client, you can start a new task, watch the progress and browse your results any time from any PC.

Advantageous licensing policy

Due to the client-server architecture of the system, we are able to propose an advantageous licensing policy. We don't restrict the number of client applications connected to the server. Licensing means limited number of key computational modules running on the server in the same time. If you buy 5 SPMP licenses, it means that at most five computation tasks can be executed on the server in the same time, but you can still have unlimited number of users investigating their results with SPMP client-side embedded tools from their PCs.

Client embedded tools

SPMP web GUI offers several embedded tools which can be useful in defining task input data and examining the results.
  • 3D molecule visualizer gives you an insight to the structure of templates, start structures and results. You can measure molecule distances, angles and torsions with this tool.
  • Toolkit for processing files in the pdb format (Figure 1) offers about 30 operations for transforming, analyzing and converting pdb files. Analyses incluse e.g.: contact maps, rotamer populations, H-bonds etc. Toolkit will be soon available as a separate, free of charge web application.
  • Alignment window supports a manual sequence alignment with several graphic utilities. You can mark amino acids with colors according to a few patterns. Automated alignment tool is also available.
  • Cluster visualization window allows you to investigate the results of clustering of replicas and define the areas where a target structure is to be searched for. As an alternative to the fully automated clustering, you can decide based on partial clustering results, which sets of replicas are worth of further clustering.
Toolkit for processing pdb files
Toolkit for processing pdb files