CBRAIN is a web-enabled distributed computing platform that facilitates collaborative research on large, distributed data by creating an easy-to-use interface for users (or groups of collaborating users) to access high-performance computing (HPC) and Cloud Computing resources. Through a series of web-based services, CBRAIN manages data access, transfer, caching and provenance, as well as data processing and reporting. While predominantly used to support researchers in neuroinformatics, CBRAIN is generic and modular, and can easily be extended with new data models and tools for a broad range of research disciplines.