[BiO BB] BLAST database lock

[Hongyu Zhang]

Dear all,

This is a question on database locking techniques. Here is my
situation: I need to run BLAST against NR and NT regularly, but both
databases are under regular updates from NCBI website every weekend
using a cron job. To avoid running against a half updated copy of
NR/NT, usually I will make a separated copy of NR/NT if my job will
be running throughout the weekend, but obviously it is a hassle for
me to remember to do that every time. Therefore, I am looking for a
database locking technique, which could make the whole procedure less
cumbersome.

I would appreciate hearing from you on what kind of locking mechanisms
you are using. Thanks!


--
Hongyu Zhang
Computational biologist
Ceres Inc.