Data unification solutions in focus for Illumina

Industries across the board today are facing the challenge of integrating cutting-edge technologies with established infrastructures. Firms are bringing together different data systems using data unification solutions to simplify work while staying flexible to latest ideas.

One company navigating this challenge is Illumina Inc., which operates within the genomics space. The corporate has grown rapidly over the past couple of years and has had to maneuver quickly to get things out the doors, in accordance with Stephen Horn, staff data engineer with Illumina.

“Lots of the issues we began finding straight away once we moved too quick sometimes, is we had a whole lot of different environments,” Horn said. “We had a whole lot of unique lab softwares, and inside those lab softwares, that they had their very own operation system [and] that they had their very own databases.”

Horn spoke with theCUBE Research’s Bob Laliberte and co-host Rebecca Knight on the Cloudera Evolve24 event during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed data unification solutions to streamline operations and the role of AI in driving innovation throughout the life sciences industry. (* Disclosure below.)

Data unification solutions aim for efficiency

As Illumina grew as an organization, it was attempting to be more proactive with its data, in accordance with Horn. That involved with the ability to look back and see what improvements and automation were possible.

“Not only for our customers, but internally inside ourselves …,” he said. “Once you’re attempting to cross all that data between one server to a different software to a different software, you possibly can imagine that was a little bit of a headache. What we did with Cloudera was [ask], ‘How will we still allow the individuality of our software?’ We’ve got a whole lot of software, starting from synthetic chemistry all the way in which right down to semiconductor engineering.”

The partnership with Cloudera Inc. allowed Illumina to not only pull data from the cloud, but additionally from a number of the company’s own on-premises lab software, in accordance with Horn. That solution allowed the corporate to unify these sources into one singular data repository.

“That way, anyone who wanted to investigate that data, from a semiconductor space, all of the solution to an artificial chemistry space, they’re ultimately capable of grab that data from one place,” he said.

Here’s the entire video interview, a part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the Cloudera Evolve24 event:

(* Disclosure: Cloudera Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cloudera nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE