Episode 3
CentoCloud® – A Safe & Secure Solution
CENTOGENE has a lifelong commitment to protecting the privacy of patients’ data, which is secured and handled with the greatest level of care and in accordance with applicable regulations and laws, including but not limited to, GDPR. Every year we process thousands of genetic tests in our state-of-the-art laboratories, while ensuring compliance with all relevant factors.
Find out how we achieve this and why CENTOGENE and CE-marked CentoCloud bioinformatic analysis are a safe and secure solution for Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) laboratories around the world.
Listen to our Audio Guide for Episode 3 – A Safe & Secure Solution
The sequencing of a patient’s whole genome will produce around 80 gigabytes of data.
To date, the CENTOGENE Biodatabank handles data from over 70,000 individuals with Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) or Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) analyses.
Every month we generate over 150 terabytes of new data.
CentoCloud Uses Cloud Technology to Support Medical Diagnostics
As sequencing and genomic testing become more widely available, another challenge becomes evident: the sheer amount of data that is generated and needs to be stored, as well as the skills required to perform diagnostic grade bioinformatic analysis on these large datasets.
Accepting the challenge, CENTOGENE scaled up and chose to focus on optimizing and creating the best possible solutions for secure data storage and processing for our bioinformatics pipeline. With CentoCloud bioinformatic analysis, this solution is now available to your NGS-based diagnostic services as well. Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform,1 met all our requirements to ensure a high level of standardization, security, and availability all over the world. As a result, CENTOGENE moved its first services to AWS in 2019. Today, CENTOGENE is securely and seamless integrated in the cloud.
Technological Background
Data Security
Genomics data is considered to be the most personal health information, and the protection of that data is critical. The core infrastructure is custom-built and designed to meet the most stringent security requirements – allowing us to ensure patient data remains anonymous, secure, and processed in compliance with international standards.
Availability
One challenge with bioinformatics is the sheer size of data you need, even for small analyses. Running your own infrastructure would be too costly or too slow to adjust. With our cloud services, we have unlimited storage capacity, and our data is safely backed up in multiple data centers in Germany. This guarantees that data will always be available, under any conditions.
Performance
Performance gains are possible through massive parallel computing capabilities. We have completely optimized our bioinformatics tools, allowing us to obtain raw mutations from WGS samples in less than 2 hours.
Scalability and Flexibility
In order to analyze thousands of patients a month, the computational infrastructure needs to be both scalable and flexible. The goal is to deliver results to the patients as soon as possible – this means a fast turnaround time (TAT), from starting the bioinformatic analysis to interpretable results for physicians. Our cloud services allow us to dynamically add more compute power whenever needed – that way we can analyze every patient in parallel, reducing our TAT.
Workflow
With the out-of the box components, we can shift the focus from the infrastructure to ensure that we have designed the best applications. Our bioinformatics platform uses Apache Airflow, managed by AWS for high-level task orchestration and controlling our analysis pipelines. We are using Batch jobs, Step Functions, and Lambda function for the actual processing of data.
Security and Data Protection – Core Values of CENTOGENE
CENTOGENE is processing patient data pursuant to applicable data protection provisions, such as the European General Data Protection (GDPR) and the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
CENTOGENE has state-of-the-art IT infrastructures – adhering to strict international guidelines for data protection and privacy laws and is certified under ISO/IEC 27001:2017, the internationally recognized standard for information security management.
All patient data is generally stored in the EU subject to EU laws, using state-of-the-art technology. CentoCloud bioinformatic analysis utilizes our cloud server infrastructure based on the Frankfurt/Main (Germany) server cluster.
CENTOGENE also ensures that the provider of our digital infrastructure is compliant with our requirements, e.g., GDPR compliance, ISO standards on information security, and data privacy.2
ISO/IEC 27001:2017
CENTOGENE operates an ISO/IEC 27001:2017 certified Information Security Management System to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of and within the provided IT services. Additionally, CENTOGENE ensures that all partners supporting the operation of the IT infrastructure fulfill the same security requirements.
GDPR Compliance
CENTOGENE respects the data protection rights of every person whose personal data we are entrusted with, and CENTOGENE complies with all applicable laws and regulations regarding data protection and data privacy. Our Data Protection Policy, which can be found under https://www.centogene.com/legal/data-protection-policy, explains the relevant processing of personal data and the relevant data protection rights.
CENTOGENE Holds the Following Accreditations and Certifications
We continually participate in the international external proficiency testing schemes of the European Molecular Genetics Quality Network (EMQN) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) to ensure technical and medical competency and proficiency.
CentoCloud – Your Safe & Secure Solution
As the essential biodata life science partner for rare and neurodegenerative diseases, CENTOGENE has a lifelong commitment to protecting the privacy of our patients’ data, which is secured and handled with the greatest level of care. With CentoCloud bioinformatic analysis, we assure you that you are choosing a safe and secure solution for Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) for your lab – no matter where you are located.
