Virtual Machine for Virtual Bioinformatics

Making bioinformatics software that is portable is a real issue for people who develop their own algorithms, says Pawel Szczêsny, but it can be done. One solution, he says, is to just try out the source on a bunch of different platforms, but that's time-consuming and a pain. Another way is to create a web interface for the software, but that adds maintenance fees and access issues. Szczêsny's third solution addresses some of the problems raised by the others — make a virtual machine for the software. "While it may seem a bit of overkill at first, I don’t think it is in the long run," he blogs.