This BLAST AMI is a very exciting development as it allows users to perform sequence similarity searches without restriction they might encounter at a public website and without the work of setting up stand-alone BLAST. The AMI includes a FUSE client that automatically downloads the most popular BLAST databases from the NCBI, and users can still upload their own custom databases. The AMI allows users to run stand-alone searches with the BLAST+ applications, submit searches through a subset of the NCBI-BLAST URL API, and perform searches with a simplified webpage.

UPDATE 5/12/2020: The BLAST AMI has been available since 2014 and has been a valued tool for many users. The most recent BLAST AMI is based on BLAST+ version 2.7.1 which supports the database version 4(dbV4). In 2019 NCBI started transitioning BLAST to dbV5. NCBI has now completed that transition and have stopped updating databases based on dbV4. Therefore, AMI users can continue to use the AMI, however the NCBI-provided BLAST databases are not being updated. If you are doing research that requires the latest data, the AMI is not the tool for you. If you are using your own databases, you will be able to use this AMI. An alternative to the AMI will be a BLAST+Docker solution coming in summer 2020.