title: GATECloud.net: a platform for large-scale, open-source text processing on the cloud.
abstract: Cloud computing is increasingly being regarded as a key enabler of the 'democratization of science', because on-demand, highly scalable cloud computing facilities enable researchers anywhere to carry out data-intensive experiments. In the context of natural language processing (NLP), algorithms tend to be complex, which makes their parallelization and deployment on cloud platforms a non-trivial task. This study presents a new, unique, cloud-based platform for large-scale NLP research--GATECloud. net. It enables researchers to carry out data-intensive NLP experiments by harnessing the vast, on-demand compute power of the Amazon cloud. Important infrastructural issues are dealt with by the platform, completely transparently for the researcher: load balancing, efficient data upload and storage, deployment on the virtual machines, security and fault tolerance. We also include a cost-benefit analysis and usage evaluation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, , Regent Court, 211 Portobello, Sheffield S1 4DP, UK. v.tablan@sheffield.ac.uk
authors.forename: Valentin
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Tablan
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: Hamish
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.forename: Kalina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bontcheva
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D020407:Internet; D009323:Natural Language Processing; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface