Like other power users, Rowland wants the best experience for the more than 400 users they support, with limited resources. Nectar and QCIF’s QRIScloud “enabled us to save tens of thousands of dollars per year” compared to commercial cloud providers, and that money saved goes towards better serving the stem cell research community. “The national Nectar infrastructure has reduced our downtime,” Rowland said.

As Rowland stated “We’re very, very lucky to have Nectar and QRIScloud. We’ve heard collaborators from the UK say ‘I wish we had infrastructure like that.’” The Nectar Research Cloud has enabled the group of power users to improve the efficiency of their operations and better serve their users.

Interested in learning more about the group of power users, Rowland sent out a questionnaire. Unsurprisingly he found that all the developers were extremely time poor and most were full stack developers – that is, a one-person team. “What came out quite a lot,” Rowland said, “was a feeling of isolation.” The overwhelming feedback was of being under resourced and being forced to quickly swap between multiple roles.

The power users group allows these time poor individuals a chance to query each other on new technologies and share ideas to maintain their goal of best practice. As Rowland commented, “I can ask questions at any time to a community that understands my needs.”

You can apply to join the Nectar Power Users Group here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/brisbane-nectar-power-users-group/join

Stemformatics is a web-based pocket dictionary for stem cell researchers. It allows these researchers to quickly and easily visualise their datasets and high-quality public datasets.

This case study was originally published on Nectar's website.