WORKSHOP: Translating workflows into Nextflow with Janis

This record includes training materials associated with the Australian BioCommons workshop ‘Translating workflows into Nextflow with Janis’. This workshop took place online on 19 June 2023.

Event description

Bioinformatics workflows are critical for reproducibly transferring methodologies between research groups and for scaling between computational infrastructures. Research groups currently invest a lot of time and effort in creating and updating workflows; the ability to translate from one workflow language into another can make them easier to share, and maintain with minimal effort. For example, research groups that would like to run an existing Galaxy workflow on HPC, or extend it for their use, might find translating the workflow to Nextflow more suitable for their ongoing use-cases. 

Janis is a framework that provides an abstraction layer for describing workflows, and a tool that can translate workflows between existing languages such as CWL, WDL, Galaxy and Nextflow. Janis aims to translate as much as it can, leaving the user to validate the workflow and make small manual adjustments where direct translations are not possible. Originating from the Portable Pipelines Project between Melbourne Bioinformatics, the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, this tool is now available for everyone to use.

This workshop provides an introduction to Janis and how it can be used to translate Galaxy and CWL based tools and workflows into Nextflow. Using hands-on examples we’ll step you through the process and demonstrate how to optimise, troubleshoot and test the translated workflows.

This workshop event and accompanying materials were developed by the Melbourne Bioinformatics and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The workshop was enabled through the Australian BioCommons - Bring Your Own Data Platforms project funded by the Australian Research Data Commons and NCRIS via Bioplatforms Australia. 
 

Materials

Materials are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International agreement unless otherwise specified and were current at the time of the event.

Files and materials included in this record:

• Event metadata (PDF): Information about the event including, description, event URL, learning objectives, prerequisites, technical requirements etc.

• Index of training materials (PDF): List and description of all materials associated with this event including the name, format, location and a brief description of each file.

• Intro to Galaxy (PDF): Slides presented during the workshop

• Intro to CWL (PDF): Slides presented during the workshop

• Intro to the session & Janis (PDF): Slides presented during the workshop

• Janis_Schedule (PDF): Schedule for the workshop providing a breakdown of topics and timings

Materials shared elsewhere:

• This workshop follows the accompanying training materials: https://www.melbournebioinformatics.org.au/tutorials/tutorials/janis_translate/janis_translate

• A recording of the workshop is available on the Australian BioCommons YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/0IiY1GEx_BY