Connect cloud storage overview

Bioinformatics data is commonly stored on compliant cloud storage services, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform. If you store your files on AWS or GCP, the CGC's API lets you connect your storage to the Seven Bridges Cancer Genomics Cloud. Once such a connection is established, files and objects from your cloud account are available for computation on the CGC. Similarly, files in your account on the CGC can be copied into your connected cloud storage.

This chapter introduces two important concepts for using cloud storage on the CGC:

  • A volume is a generic storage repository, on the cloud, external to the CGC, on which the CGC can communicate via the API.
  • An alias is a file that is not on the CGC, but is instead on an external volume that has been connected to the CGC.

Operations on volumes are handled by the CGC API. For the API reference, see the Volumes section of the API documentation.