BGI and Aspera Collaborate on High-speed Data Exchange to Advance Genome Research

Aspera, Inc., creators of next-generation software technologies that move the world's data at maximum speed, and BGI, the world's largest genomics research institute, today announced at Bio-IT World that they have partnered to integrate and deploy the Aspera Connect Server and Aspera fasp^TM high-speed file transferring technology with "EasyGenomicsTM", BGI's latest cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, and to expand BGI's high speed sequencing data delivery service.

Handling the tremendous amount of data generated by NGS has become one of the biggest obstacles to fully utilize this technology. To liberate scientists from the burden of processing the huge amount of NGS data, BGI developed EasyGenomics, a Cloud-based bioinformatics solution recently introduced by BGI for NGS data. EasyGenomics provides scientists with high-speed data exchange, easy data and resource management, and point-to-click data analysis workflows, including whole genome resequencing, targeted resequencing, RNA-Seq, small RNA and De novo assembly, to make NGS analysis easier and faster. With seamless integration of the Aspera Connect Server, EasyGenomics enables global scale terabytes NGS sequencing data exchange which allows users to fully take advantage of BGI's well-recognized NGS analysis capabilities built in EasyGenomics. For details of EasyGenomics, please visit www.EasyGenomics.com.

BGI, the world's largest genomics research institute, covers every field of genome research producing thousands of genomes a day. Legacy methods of exchanging hard drives to get data to customers and partners had proved expensive, prone to human errors and overly time consuming. Pilot studies at BGI with Aspera's patented, high-speed fasp^TM transport had shown great success in dramatically improving delivery time, decreasing cost for partners and removing the need for shipping hard drives for sequencing data delivery. BGI is looking forward to expanding Aspera-based data delivery service to all its customers and partners.

Aspera's Connect Server enables high speed sequencing data import/export, while fasp^TM is integrated directly in to the web portal using the rich APIs available through the Aspera Developer Network (ADN).

The web-based Connect Server provides a file transfer framework that serves as the foundation to the website and can easily be integrated into any type of digital workflow. Built on patented fasp^TM technology, the Connect Server delivers maximum transfer throughput over any distance and network condition with end-to-end security and exceptional bandwidth control.

"Aspera is the industry standard for the transport and management of large data files produced by life sciences," said BGI's Cloud Product Director Sifei He. "Aspera's superior file transport speed, bandwidth management and reliability coupled with BGI's newly released "EasyGenomics" bioinformatics platform, delivers a powerful solution for our customers and collaborators. Aspera's flexible APIs allowed us to quickly complete system integration and provide service."

"About one out of three of our customers are using the Aspera SDK to integrate fasp^TM in to their platforms," said John Wastcoat, Vice President at Aspera. "BGI was able to integrate superior transport capabilities directly into their application, while preserving complete transparency and end-user usability for the service."

Source: BGI Shenzhen