Genome Annotation Transfer Utility (GATU): rapid annotation of viral genomes using a closely related reference genome

Tcherepanov, Vasily; Ehlers, Angelika; Upton, Chris

The role of the Application Server is to link the GATU client to the database search and sequence alignment applications the program uses; for convenience and enhanced speed, these may be installed on a more powerful machine or on a cluster. The process operates in the following simple manner. The client system sends a request to the Application Server to run a specific program (such as BLAST); the Application Server then runs the program using the client's input and subsequently passes the output of the program back to the client machine, where it is displayed to the user in the GUI. The primary goal of this client-server arrangement is to allow the client to run a wide variety of bioinformatics applications without the need to have those applications installed on the machine where the client resides. This optimizes speed, reduces the RAM required for the client machine, and reduces the problems associated with cross-platform support.