How can software containers help your research?
Channel: Australian Research Data Commons - ARDC
Date: 2021-07-26

This video explains software containers to a research audience. It is an introduction to why containers are beneficial for research. These benefits are standardisation, portability, reliability and reproducibility. 

Software Containers in research are a solution that addresses the challenge of a replicable computational environment and supports reproducibility of research results. Understanding the concept of software containers enables researchers to better communicate their research needs with their colleagues and other researchers using and developing containers.

Check out these useful resources for researchers and institutions working with research containers:
 - The Pawsey Supercomputing Centre has a list of videos explaining containers https://www.youtube.com/c/PawseySupercomputingCentre/search?query=container and tutorials to follow online https://pawseysc.github.io/containers.html
 - If you are a researcher in Australia you can build containers in the Nectar Research Cloud http://ardc.edu.au/nectar
 - If you are already familiar with containers in research you are welcome to participate in the    Australian Research Container Orchestration Services (ARCOS) Community https://arcos.ardc.edu.au/
 
Share your research containers challenges and solutions with us in the comment section below, we would love to hear from you! 
 
If you have any questions about research containers, get in touch with ARDC: 
 - ARDC Website: https://ardc.edu.au
 - Contact Form: https://ardc.edu.au/contact-us/
 - Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARDC_AU
 - Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/australian-research-data-commons/
 - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ARDC_AU 
 - Click here to subscribe to this channel https://www.youtube.com/c/ARDC_AU?sub_confirmation=1 

About Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
The ARDC is a transformational initiative that enables Australian research community and industry access to nationally significant, leading edge data intensive eInfrastructure, platforms, skills and collections of high-quality data. The purpose of the ARDC is to provide Australian researchers with competitive advantage through data, providing access to leading edge eResearch collections, tools, infrastructure and services. Its mission is to accelerate research and innovation by driving excellence in the creation, analysis and retention of high-quality data assets.

Supplementary information
We recognise the limitations of a short video - hence we refer you to supplementary information:
Your first point of contact should be your local institution/organisation computing support
The NeuroDesk is a project that uses containers for Neurosciences (short video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLv_5fycugw.
Introduction to using containers for reproducibility in R (presentation video and examples) https://github.com/rladies/meetup-presentations_brisbane/tree/master/2021/06
Searching for containers? these are some global repositories
- Singularity Hub https://singularityhub.github.io/sregistry/ 
- Biocontainers https://biocontainers.pro/ 
- Docker Hub https://hub.docker.com/ 
- Red Hat Quay https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/cloud-computing/quay 
- Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) https://aws.amazon.com/ecr/ 
- Azure Container Registry https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/container-registry/ 
- Google Container Registry https://cloud.google.com/container-registry/

Acknowledgements
With thanks to the ARDC staff who contributed to the completion of this video:
Dr Paula Andrea Martinez, Skills Consultant, ARDC, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8990-1985
The ARDC Skills and Development Team
The ARDC Communications Team
The ARDC eResearch Infrastructure & Services
THE ARDC Nectar Research Cloud

Keywords
#containers, #software, #research, #RSE, #reproducibility, #standard, #agility, #portable, #reusable, #code, #application, #reproducible, #standardisation, #package, #system, #cloud, #server, #version, #reliability, #program, #collaborator, #ARDC_AU

Citation
Australian Research Data Commons, 2021. How can software containers help your research?. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HelrQnm3v4g  DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5091260 [Accessed dd Month YYYY].

Licence
All material provided on this video is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ licence, except:
any images or branding, including the ARDC, Nectar and NCRIS logos
content supplied by third parties, such as voice overs.

Video production service 
Sam Muirhead, Camera Libre https://www.cameralibre.cc/
Made with Free/Libre Open Source Software
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameralibre
Source files: https://gitlab.com/cameralibre/software-containers-animation