AWS HealthOmics introduces caching for cancelled workflow runs

AWS HealthOmics has announced a new feature that allows for the caching of completed task outputs from cancelled workflow runs. This functionality enables users to reuse previously completed outputs, thus eliminating the need to recompute tasks that have already been completed. When a run is cancelled, and caching is activated, AWS HealthOmics automatically saves the outputs of completed tasks to the customer’s S3 bucket. This allows users to resume workflow runs from the point of cancellation without starting over.

AWS HealthOmics is a service eligible under HIPAA regulations, designed to assist healthcare and life sciences organizations in expediting scientific discoveries with fully managed bioinformatics workflows. The new caching feature is particularly beneficial for researchers, bioinformaticians, and workflow developers as it facilitates efficient debugging and iterative development of workflows. By storing intermediate files and completed task outputs for review, the feature helps to save on costs and time associated with recomputing tasks that might have taken significant time to complete. Additionally, it speeds up subsequent runs by only processing tasks that remain incomplete.

This new caching capability is now available for workflow runs using Nextflow, WDL, and CWL in all AWS HealthOmics regions, including US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Europe (Frankfurt, Ireland, London), Israel (Tel Aviv), and Asia Pacific (Singapore, Seoul). For more information, users are encouraged to consult the workflow cache documentation.