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SaTScan on a Cloud: On-Demand Large Scale Spatial Analysis of Epidemics
Ronald C Price1, Warren Pettey, Tim Freeman
1Center for High Performance Computing, The University of Utah.
Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
|April 10, 2013
Summary
Cloud computing significantly speeds up epidemic analysis using SaTScan software. This approach reduces computation time from 8896 to 842 seconds, offering a practical solution for health departments.
Area of Science:
- Computational epidemiology
- Health informatics
- Cloud computing applications
Background:
- Epidemic analysis requires significant computational resources.
- Traditional analysis methods can be time-consuming.
- On-demand computing offers a potential solution.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the feasibility of using cloud computing for SaTScan.
- To assess the performance improvement for intensive epidemic analysis.
- To determine the practical implementation effort for state health departments.
Main Methods:
- Utilized 15 virtual machines on the Nimbus cloud platform.
- Applied SaTScan, a computer-intensive application for epidemic analysis.
- Employed an iterative software development methodology with caBIG tools.
Main Results:
- Reduced total execution time for ensemble runs from 8896 seconds to 842 seconds.
- Implementation of the SaTScan cloud system required approximately 200 man-hours.
- Demonstrated technical advantages and practical feasibility.
Conclusions:
- Cloud computing provides on-demand resources for efficient epidemic analysis.
- The proposed approach is technically sound and practically achievable for public health.
- The implementation effort is within the scope of state health department resources.
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