Illumina
Ovation Data helps Illumina scale the storage behind its human genome studies
Background
Launched in 1990, the Human Genome Project was a 13-year, multi-billion-dollar global undertaking to generate the first sequence of all three billion letters of a human genome. Illumina, founded in 1998, develops applied genomics systems used in disease research, drug development, and molecular test development. After the project concluded, Illumina applied next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology to cut the time needed to sequence DNA, delivering thousands of human genomes in the years that followed at a fraction of the original cost.
Sequencing at that pace produced data at a matching pace. Around 2007, Illumina’s studies of the human genome were generating volumes that its existing storage could not absorb for long, and the company needed infrastructure that would grow with the science rather than behind it.
Challenge
Illumina needed a system capable of handling three-billion-letter gene sequences, with the throughput to keep analysis moving as sequencing output climbed. Data volumes were growing exponentially, so capacity had to expand continuously rather than through disruptive rebuilds, and it had to do so without a matching expansion in the cost and staff needed to manage it.
Solution
Through a consultative process beginning in 2007-08, Ovation Data recommended, supplied and periodically installed digital online storage systems that Illumina used to store and manage the information generated through its human genome studies. The engagement started at 80TB. As sequencing output grew, Ovation added capacity in step, taking the environment past a petabyte by fall 2010 while Illumina’s IT headcount remained flat. The storage scaled because someone else was scaling it, leaving Illumina’s team focused on the science rather than the infrastructure.
Scaling at pace
Online storage grew from an initial 80TB to 1,026TB in three years
Growth of almost 13x, absorbed through periodic installation rather than rebuilds
Capacity added in step with sequencing output
Storage and management
More than a petabyte of online storage in use for human genome study data
Data stored and managed on Ovation Data-supplied systems
No increase in Illumina's IT staff count, keeping costs manageable as volumes grew
Results
When Ovation Data began installing storage for Illumina in 2007, sequencing a single human genome still cost millions of dollars. By the end of the engagement’s first phase in 2010 it had fallen to around $50,000, and Illumina has since driven it further, announcing the $1,000 genome in 2014 and pricing its current NovaSeq X platform at what it calls the $200 genome. Each fall in cost meant more genomes sequenced and more data generated, and through the years when that growth was steepest, the data sat on storage that Ovation Data supplied, installed, and expanded.
DNA studies are now within reach of far more researchers, particularly those working on diseases and population diversity with large sample sets, and that access has brought advances in diagnosis and the development of new therapies. Ovation is proud to have assisted Illumina in this process.
“Scientific progress often depends on infrastructure that nobody sees. As sequencing output grew, we expanded storage capacity right alongside it. That gave Illumina a platform that could grow with its research, without data capacity becoming a constraint.”
The Human Genome - a Timeline
2001
The Human Genome Project publishes its initial findings and first analysis of the draft human genome sequence.
2003
The Human Genome Project is completed two years ahead of schedule, sequencing the human genome to 99.99 percent accuracy and estimating that humans have approximately 20,000-25,000 genes.
2007
Illumina acquires Solexa, whose Genome Analyzer gives scientists the power to sequence a gigabase of DNA in a single run, and next-generation sequencing output begins doubling year on year.
2014
Illumina announces the $1,000 genome.
2018
The UK's 100,000 Genomes Project, run by Genomics England with the NHS on Illumina sequencing technology, completes sequencing 100,000 genomes from around 85,000 patients affected by rare diseases or cancer.
2020
Following the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, the genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is sequenced.
2022
The Telomere-to-Telomere consortium publishes the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome, filling the final 8 percent that earlier methods could not reach.
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