GenAP: Genetics and Genomics Analysis Platform 2016 update

The Genetics and Genomics Analysis Platform (GenAP) is a computing platform for life science researchers, with two goals in mind: making bioinformatics analyses and data sharing more accessible to bioinformaticians and... [ view full abstract ]

The Genetics and Genomics Analysis Platform (GenAP) is a computing platform for life science researchers, with two goals in mind: making bioinformatics analyses and data sharing more accessible to bioinformaticians and non-bioinformaticians, and reducing the bottlenecks associated with genomics big data processing. GenAP offers three main components: a powerful and user-friendly analysis tools such as Galaxy; a code and genomic libraries distribution platform called CVMFS; and bioinformatics software analysis pipelines. Users can access and manage the GenAP tools through its web portal. The project was officially launched on February 2015.

Over the last year, the GenAP team has worked to consolidate the platform and introduce new features and tools. Such features include better statistics on allocation and storage utilization, and jobs, launched using Galaxy and our pipeline framework, are available from the GenAP portal; a monitoring system of web traffic via Google Analytics; a new version of Galaxy integrated with CVMFS distributed tools; and installation of several new tools.

A new GenAP node has also been ported to a first host outside the Mammouth HPC at Sherbrooke University. Currently the GenAP team is finalizing its integration with the McGill Guillimin cluster, which will allow the deployment of all GenAP tools at Guillimin supercomputer.

GenAP has been used by more than 150 research groups in its first year and this number will increase with the addition of new hosts. Several universities and research centres have already demonstrated their interest in hosting GenAP nodes in a near future.