A secure cloud-edges computing architecture for metagenomics analysis

Portable sequencing machines, such as the Oxford Nanopore MinION, are making the genome sequencing ubiquitous. Consequently, metagenomic studies are becoming increasingly popular, yielding important insights into microbial communities covering diverse environments from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems. Furthermore, the adoption of low-power IoT computing devices represents a feasible way of distributing and managing those machines on the field. However, a key issue is represented by the huge amount of data produced during operations, whose management is actually challenging considering the resources required for an efficient data transfer and processing. In order to deal with such a challenge, this paper put forward a novel architecture based on the coupling of Edge and Cloud computing paradigms. The focus of the paper is the Edge layer, responsible for the dynamic management of the full analysis pipeline of IoT devices producing large datasets like the MinION ones while adopting proper security mechanisms that handle the authentication of on-field devices and the confidentiality of the transmitted data.