When identifying unknown analytes, one very powerful tool is data-dependent acquisition (DDA) with generic LCMS conditions. This technique is especially useful for scientists who are monitoring environmental, forensic, or food samples. But with accurate-mass LCMS instruments, an extremely large volume of accurate-mass fragmentation data can be produced daily. A modern accurate-mass instrument can generate over 50 thousand spectra per day. This creates the predicament: "Who is going to look at all that data?"

The solution is Similar Partition Screening (SPS) on an Amazon Web Services AMI. This application requires no knowledge of mass spectral fragmentation rules and minimal training - anyone familiar with Microsoft Office software can use it. Using the recommended m5zn large processor, this SPS AMI can analyze about 100 spectra per minute. This AMI comes with most of the software needed to do SPS, and it also includes a MIcrosoft Access template to make it easy to create and directly import the results into Access. The Access database can be filtered, searched, and queried.

This SPS software that screens for 240000 common compounds, subtracts blanks, and summarizes all of the data for importing into Microsoft Access, is launched as a "server" (or EC2) from our AMI whenever you want to use SPS. There are no high upfront costs or subscriptions, and it comes with a free 14-day trial.

In addition to this AMI and Microsoft Office, users will also need MSConvert (free download from proteowizard) to convert mass spectral data in proprietary vendor formats into generic data formats. An application to do secure file transfers of data and results between your desktop computer and AWS, such as WinSCP (free download), will also be needed.