Abstract
In many scientific fields, most data are digitized and handled on computers and networks. The data files are getting larger in size and numbers. Science clouds, which are equipped with both flexibility and specialty applicable for countless scientific studies, are believed to play important roles as an infrastructure of big-data sciences and inter-disciplinary studies. The NICT Science Cloud is designed to work with functions of data crawling and transfer, data preservation and management, and data processing and visualization. We have developed applications, tools, systems and services designed for these three functions (especially for Earth and space environmental sciences) installed on the NICT Science Cloud. By applying these functions to each science project, researchers are able to advance their studies. In this paper, we first introduce the NICT Science Cloud. We next report our 2-years operations of the cloud system based on several fact data. Finally, results of research works using the cloud system are discussed with focusing on how we effectively take advantage of a cloud system on research works in various fields.
