Using GATE Cloud

1. Try sample services (free and easy)

For a quick, easy, and free-of-charge introduction to GATE Cloud, you can use our sample services form to type or paste text in the box or upload a file and run one of our three most popular services on it. The sample services do not require a GATE Cloud account.

2. Your GATE Cloud account

Everything except the sample services described above requires registration for a GATE Cloud account. You need to supply a valid e-mail address but there is no charge for registration.

Your account page allows you to change your password or e-mail address and shows your account balance. Some GATE Cloud services are free of charge, but you may need to add funds to your account using the account page's "Add funds" link to the University of Sheffield's on-line shop. You can add funds in multiples of GBP5 (or 10, 50, or 100).

3. Interactive use

You can use the dashboard page to manage your data bundles and cloud services. (A data bundle is a zip file of documents in a format that GATE handles.) Here you can upload and download data bundles, delete them (there is a very small storage charge per day and GB of data), and view and manage annotation jobs and cloud machines (described next).

The services page allows you to reserve annotation jobs and cloud machines (which are then defined and controlled from the dashboard). Our annotation job documentation explains how to reserve and define annotation jobs and gives an example.

The Twitter Collector, documented on its own page, is a cloud machine which uses the Twitter API to collect a stream of tweets according to your criteria and store them in data bundles that GATE Cloud (or GATE) can process later.

GATE Mímir (Multi-paradigm Information Management Index and Repository) is also available as a cloud machine. The full manual explains how to build and run Mímir on your own server (as well as how to use it), but the cloud machine is the easiest way to run it.

4. REST APIs and clients

The GATE Cloud REST APIs are summarized in this overview.

GATE Cloud offers an on-line REST API for processing individual documents. This is suitable for small numbers of documents and testing purposes. It is free of charge but requires you to create an API key and is subject to a daily quota.

GATE Cloud also offers REST APIs for data management, reserving annotation jobs and cloud machines, managing annotation jobs and managing cloud machines. You can develop your own clients using those specifications or use our Java command-line tool.

5. Uploading your own GATE applications

You can prepare your own GATE applications and upload them to GATE Cloud, according to these instructions and this example with screenshots. More screenshots and examples are shown in slides 43 to 51 of our GATE Cloud and Mímir training materials.

6. The GATE family

The GATE family includes other services and software.

7. Terms and conditions

Our terms of service are listed on their own page.