iRODS metadata management for a cancer genome analysis workflow

Abstract

Abstract Background The massive amounts of data from next generation sequencing (NGS) methods pose various challenges with respect to data security, storage and metadata management. While there is a broad range of data analysis pipelines, these challenges remain largely unaddressed to date. Results We describe the integration of the open-source metadata management system iRODS (Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System) with a cancer genome analysis pipeline in a high performance computing environment. The system allows for customized metadata attributes as well as fine-grained protection rules and is augmented by a user-friendly front-end for metadata input. This results in a robust, efficient end-to-end workflow under consideration of data security, central storage and unified metadata information. Conclusions Integrating iRODS with an NGS data analysis pipeline is a suitable method for addressing the challenges of data security, storage and metadata management in NGS environments.

Keywords

• Next generation sequencing (NGS)
• Genome analysis
• iRODS
• Workflow integration
• High performance computing (HPC)
• Data security