StochSS: Stochastic Simulation Service is an integrated development environment for modeling and simulation of discrete stochastic biochemical systems. An easy-to-use GUI enables researchers to quickly develop and simulate biological models on a desktop or laptop, which can then be expanded or combined to incorporate increasing levels of complexity. As the demand for computational power increases, StochSS is able to seamlessly scale up by deploying cloud computing resources. The software currently supports simulation of ODE and well-mixed discrete stochastic models, parameter estimation of discrete stochastic models, and simulation of spatial stochastic models.

New capabilities of Version 1.9 include:

1. Support for simulation and parameter sweep jobs on batch cluster computing (i.e. Qsub based computing clusters)
2. Configuration of batch computing resources
3. Enhancements to multi-user setup, including email authentication

For more details and instructions on how to obtain the code, visit us at www.StochSS.org, and to try it in a cloud-computing environment, go to try.StochSS.org.

Brian Drawert, Andreas Hellander and Linda Petzold