Seres Modernizes Genomics HPC Workloads on AWS
with Loka
Industries
Life Sciences, Biotechnology
Tech & TOOLS
AWS Batch, AWS Step Functions, AWS DataSync, Terraform, AWS Control Tower, AWS Security Hub, AWS Backup, Amazon S3
Teams & Services
DevOps, Data Engineering,
Project Management
milestones
Migrated & modernized 400TB
of genomics data to AWS
Industry
Life Sciences, Biotechnology
Tech & TOOLS
AWS Batch, AWS Step Functions, AWS DataSync, Terraform, AWS Control Tower, AWS Security Hub, AWS Backup, Amazon S3
Teams & Services
DevOps, Data Engineering,
Project Management
milestones
Migrated & modernized 400TB
of genomics data to AWS
Seres Therapeutics accelerates genomics research, cutting processing times from days to hours with AWS.
The situation
Seres Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing microbiome therapeutics. Its research platform relies on high-performance computing (HPC) workloads to process genomics data, run large-scale analyses, and support scientific discovery.
The company’s on-premises HPC environment had accumulated more than a decade of services, including Altair Grid Scheduler, GPFS storage, virtual machines, and custom automation. As research demands grew, the environment increased operational complexity, limited scalability, and required ongoing maintenance.
They partnered with Loka to migrate and modernize its HPC workloads on AWS, with the goals of reducing infrastructure costs, improving operational efficiency and security, modernizing its architecture, and creating a more scalable foundation for future research workloads.
The challenge
Seres needed to migrate its genomics HPC platform from on-premises infrastructure to AWS while modernizing a decade of accumulated services. The existing environment relied on legacy scheduling, storage, virtual machines, and custom automation, making it difficult to scale efficiently as workload demands changed.
The new environment needed to support large-scale genomics workloads while improving security, resilience, and operational efficiency. Seres also wanted to adopt cloud-native managed services, Infrastructure as Code, and CI/CD practices to create a more consistent and maintainable operating model.
The migration also involved moving approximately 400 TB of genomics data from on-premises storage to Amazon S3. Loka needed to establish appropriate migration, testing, security, disaster recovery, business continuity, documentation, and handoff processes to support production workloads and future modernization efforts.
The solution
Loka re-platformed Seres' genomics HPC workloads from on-premises infrastructure to AWS managed services. AWS Batch replaced legacy scheduling infrastructure, while AWS Step Functions orchestrated workflows and enabled jobs to execute concurrently across dynamically scalable compute capacity. AWS Lambda and AWS EventBridge automated supporting processes, while Amazon CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray provided monitoring and visibility across the platform.
Loka migrated approximately 400 TB of genomics data to Amazon S3 using AWS DataSync. Amazon S3 lifecycle management and cross-Region backups using AWS Backup strengthened data governance, protection, and resilience.
The platform was provisioned using Terraform-based Infrastructure as Code, with automated container image builds and CI/CD deployment pipelines. Loka also implemented cloud-native security controls, network segmentation, centralized IAM controls, and AWS security services to strengthen the platform's security posture.
What we delivered
Loka delivered migration planning, testing, operational documentation, knowledge transfer, and a Well-Architected Review, giving Seres a repeatable foundation for ongoing modernization:
Modernized HPC workloads
Loka re-platformed Seres' genomics HPC workloads onto AWS Batch and AWS Step Functions, enabling concurrent job execution across dynamically scalable compute capacity.
Cloud-scale genomics data migration
Loka migrated approximately 400 TB of genomics data from on-premises storage to Amazon S3 using AWS DataSync, with lifecycle management and cross-Region backups supporting data protection and resilience.
Secure, observable infrastructure
Loka implemented network segmentation, centralized IAM controls, AWS-native security services, Amazon CloudWatch, and AWS X-Ray to strengthen security and improve visibility across the environment.
Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD
Loka standardized AWS infrastructure deployment using Terraform-based Infrastructure as Code and automated CI/CD pipelines, enabling environments to be consistently deployed, replicated, and rebuilt.
Operational readiness
Loka delivered migration plans, testing processes, operating documentation, runbooks, knowledge transfer, and a Well-Architected Review to support Seres' ongoing operation and modernization of the platform.
The results
Seres transformed a complex, self-managed HPC environment into a scalable AWS platform designed to support modern genomics workloads. By replacing legacy infrastructure with managed AWS services and introducing parallel processing, automated deployment, cloud-scale storage, and stronger security controls, Loka helped Seres accelerate processing, reduce operational complexity, and establish a more resilient foundation for future research workloads.
Multi-day → hours: Accelerated HPC workloads from multi-day processing cycles to completion within hours through concurrent execution using AWS Step Functions and AWS Batch.
~400 TB: Migrated approximately 400 TB of genomics data from on-premises storage to Amazon S3 using AWS DataSync.
Cross-Region resilience: Strengthened protection of critical genomics data with cross-Region Amazon S3 backups using AWS Backup.
Elastic compute: Enabled workloads to execute concurrently across dynamically scalable AWS compute capacity, improving job throughput and reducing processing time.
Repeatable infrastructure: Standardized infrastructure deployment with Terraform and Infrastructure as Code, enabling AWS environments to be quickly replicated, rebuilt, and consistently deployed.
Scalable HPC capabilities that enable the company's engineering team to independently operate, manage, and extend the platform as demand grows
