Figure 1. Workflow for analyzing cryo-EM data on Amazon's cloud computing infrastructure.
After collecting cryo-EM data (Step 1), particles are extracted from the micrographs and prepared for further analysis (Step 2). After logging into an ‘instance’ (Step 3), data are uploaded to a storage server (elastic block storage) (Step 4). At this point, STARcluster can be configured to launch a cluster of 2–30 instances that is mounted with the data from the storage volume (Step 5). A detailed protocol can be found at an accompanying Google site: http://goo.gl/AIwZJz.