BGI launches new cloud computing platform for genomic data analysis

BGI, the world's largest genomics organization, announces the launch of a powerful and highly secure cloud computing platform for genomic data analysis, known as BGI Online. BGI Online provides a one-stop solution for managing NGS projects and enables users to create and run complex data analysis pipelines easily.

BGI Online is designed to address the common challenges associated with time and cost that researchers face when analyzing, storing, and sharing tremendous volumes of next-generation sequencing (NGS) data. With a robust and reliable infrastructure tailored toward large genomics data analysis projects and best-in-class safety and security, BGI Online provides easier and more effective solutions to institutions of all types and sizes, for jobs ranging from data storage, automated analysis, and data delivery to project collaboration, bioinformatics methods development, and community sharing.

BGI has leveraged years of experience in NGS data analysis to develop a cloud-based solution that eliminates the traditional headaches associated with handling, storing, and sharing huge amounts of NGS data. "Not only have we developed a scalable solution that meets high security and compliance requirements such as HIPAA and EU privacy laws and regulations, but we have also focused on building a powerful and reliable infrastructure as a service that specifically addresses the demands of NGS big data analysis," said Guoqing Li, Project Director of BGI Online.

BGI Online was built with the most advanced resource management engine available, which allows for precise distribution of computational tasks, real-time task monitoring, and prompt response to errors. Moreover, BGI developed innovative procedures to prevent job crashes due to insufficient allocated memory, thus saving the user from having to run the complete analysis pipeline again after a task crashes. In addition, the use of high-speed caching allows for a significant reduction in data analysis time requirements (only 13.33 seconds required to write a 5-GB output file to storage).

Using BGI Online, institutions of any size can easily build their own custom analysis tools with BGI's open-source software development kit. More importantly, users can combine these custom tools with a growing list of publicly available tools and the proprietary bioinformatics tools and resources available from BGI Online to create pipelines that fit specific research needs.

"We are excited about sharing those great features with researchers all around the world. With them, BGI Online customers will truly have a powerful and easy to use analysis platform that specifically meets the demanding needs of any NGS lab," says Guoqing Li.

Provided by BGI Shenzhen