Blue-Cloud Virtual Labs in support of Sustainable Development Goals

The Blue-Cloud thematic Virtual Labs (VLabs) are the main test beds for users to get the hang of the Blue-Cloud framework, exploiting the 10+ million datasets available via the Data Discovery and Access Service (DD&AS), as well as the easy access to the collaborative VLabs via D4Science and the EOSC federated login.

These collaborative workspaces hosted in the Blue-Cloud Virtual Research Environment (VRE) are serving more than 1,300 users in total spread across more than 20 countries.

Five Virtual Labs were developed and deployed in the Blue-Cloud pilot project, making use of the analytical tools and generic services as provided through the VRE, and the data repositories, as made accessible via the DD&AS and through external data services. The Blue-Cloud VLabs are real-life demonstrators for web-based open science and are open and available for testing by different research communities. Each VLab comprises a series of applications for data processing, publishing of data results, and managing computation routines as well as services for collaboration, this way providing open science-friendly working environments for its users to analyse datasets and (re)generate research products.

•  Zoo & Phytoplankton EOV Products 
•  Plankton Genomics 
•  Marine Environmental Indicators 
•  Fish, a matter of scales 
•  Aquaculture Monitor 

12 thematic marine services are included in the VLabs and make extensive use of the Blue-Cloud framework and its rich set of resources. These services illustrate the wide range of subjects that can be addressed using such resources, from genomics to wildlife as well as environmental data coming from multiple disciplines and repositories, and all together demonstrate Blue-Cloud’s potential in different fields of marine research, ranging from biodiversity to environmental science, as well as fisheries and aquaculture. In addition to these, this document also features factsheets for the three top teams awarded at the Blue-Cloud Hackathon 2022, providing additional examples of applications for Blue-Cloud assets in the blue economy.

•  Sea Clearly - A tool to assess ocean plastic impacts on and by aquaculture farms
•  PerfeCt - Performance of Aquaculture under Climate change
•  Wildlife Tracker for Oceans - MPA assessment with real-time wildlife tracking & ocean monitoring data