RESUMEN
Technological advances in imaging and data acquisition are leading to the development of petabyte-scale neuroscience image datasets. These large-scale volumetric datasets pose unique challenges since analyses often span the entire volume, requiring a unified platform to access it. In this paper, we describe the Brain Observatory Storage Service and Database (BossDB), a cloud-based solution for storing and accessing petascale image datasets. BossDB provides support for data ingest, storage, visualization, and sharing through a RESTful Application Programming Interface (API). A key feature is the scalable indexing of spatial data and automatic and manual annotations to facilitate data discovery. Our project is open source and can be easily and cost effectively used for a variety of modalities and applications, and has effectively worked with datasets over a petabyte in size.
RESUMEN
As neuroimagery datasets continue to grow in size, the complexity of data analyses can require a detailed understanding and implementation of systems computer science for storage, access, processing, and sharing. Currently, several general data standards (e.g., Zarr, HDF5, precomputed) and purpose-built ecosystems (e.g., BossDB, CloudVolume, DVID, and Knossos) exist. Each of these systems has advantages and limitations and is most appropriate for different use cases. Using datasets that don't fit into RAM in this heterogeneous environment is challenging, and significant barriers exist to leverage underlying research investments. In this manuscript, we outline our perspective for how to approach this challenge through the use of community provided, standardized interfaces that unify various computational backends and abstract computer science challenges from the scientist. We introduce desirable design patterns and share our reference implementation called intern.