R是一種開放原始碼的程式語言，在統計和圖形運算上有著非常出色的表現[1,2]，目前廣泛應用在統計與生物資訊的領域中。而Bioconductor則是專在R語言環境中所設計來分析生物晶片資料與基因組數據分析的套件包[3]。目前公開發布的R軟體提供單機版的安裝，並能在微軟的視窗系統、Linux以及MacOS X等作業系統上安裝。當基因資料越趨龐大的同時，單機版R軟體所需的電腦記憶體容量以及儲存容量也就更顯重要。雲端運算憑藉著網際網路的普及和連線速度的增快，讓軟體服務偏向透過網頁介面以減輕使用者端電腦環境的負擔，並透過遠端的資料中心提供穩定的服務[4]。Cloud-R即是一個網路服務，提供了一個線上使用R軟體所有功能的平台。對於使用Cloud-R平台的使用者最基本的要求是能夠有使用過R語言的經驗。為了讓Cloud-R平台能夠有著充足的運算資源，Cloud-R平台提供了一個快速簡單的管道讓使用者能夠貢獻閒置的電腦資源。使用者貢獻的電腦資源能夠隨心所欲的給予或是收回，依照自身的使用需求做合理的安排。貢獻者是透過在R軟體之上擴充安裝的nws套件，經由nws套件提供的函數，可以很輕易的達到電腦共同合作運算的目的[5]。Cloud-R平台可在以下網址:http://epigenomics.ncu.edu.tw/Cloud-R/登入。 R is an open source programming language for statistical and graphical computation that is popular among statisticians and bioinformaticians [1,2]. In particular, an R project called Bioconductor has been dedicated to the analysis and comprehension of genomic metadata using R [3].R is available in the form of standalone software that runs on Windows, MacOS X and Linux machines. As the volume of genomic data continues to explode, a high capacity R environment is in need. Cloud computing, aided by wider Internet penetration and faster Web communication, represents a paradigm shift in computation toward deployment of applications to remote data centers [4]. We propose to let users run their R programs through web browsers. Cloud-R is such a Web server that provides R utilities over the Internet. A basic requirement of Cloud-R development is that user experience of Cloud-R be identical to that of regular R. More importantly, to the goal of virtually limitless computational resources for R, Cloud-R allows users to freely contribute their computers to Cloud-R. Users’ contributions of hardware can be made and withdrawn at anytime by themselves. Connection of a contributor’s computer is via nws, an R package for coordinate programming [5]. Cloud-R can login at this URL: http://epigenomics.ncu.edu.tw/Cloud-R/.
