Toward Efficient and Reliable Genome Analysis using Main-Memory Database Systems

Improvements in DNA sequencing technologies allow to se-quence complete human genomes in a short time and at acceptable cost. Hence, the vision of genome analysis as standard procedure to support and improve medical treat-ment becomes reachable. In this vision paper, we describe important data-management challenges that have to be met to make this vision come true. Besides genome-analysis performance, data-management capabilities such as data provenance and data integrity become increasingly impor-tant to enable comprehensible and reliable genome analysis. We argue to meet these challenges by using main-memory database technologies, which combine fast processing capa-bilities with extensive data-management capabilities. Finally, we discuss possibilities of integrating genome-analysis tasks into DBMSs and derive new research questions. 1