Data privacy

Your data

Your data stays strictly within your infrastructure itself. When you launch a workflow through Tower, you need to connect your infrastructure (HPC/VMs/K8s) by creating the appropriate credentials and compute environment in a workspace.

Tower then uses this configuration to trigger a Nextflow workflow within your infrastructure similar to what is done via the Nextflow CLI, therefore Tower does not manipulate any data itself and no data is transferred to the infrastructure where Tower is running.

It may be possible to access some data within your storage from the Nextflow Tower interface - for example, viewing logs and reports generated in a pipeline run - however, this data is never stored within the Tower infrastructure.

Metadata stored by Nextflow Tower

Workflow execution metadata is sent by the Nextflow runtime to Nextflow Tower when:

• Launching workflow with Tower
• Using the -with-tower option at the command line
• When a Nextflow Tower is specified in the Nextflow config

The following sections describe the data structure and metadata fields collected by Tower.

Workflow metadata

The following metadata fields are collected and stored by the Tower backend during a workflow execution:

Name	Description
command_line	The command line used to launch the workflow execution
commit_id	The workflow project commit Id at the time of the execution
complete	The workflow execution completion timestamp
config_files	The nextflow config file paths(s) involved in the workflow execution
config_text	The nextflow config content used for the workflow execution. Note: secrets, such as, AWS keys are stripped and not included in this field.
container	The container image name(s) used for the pipeline execution
container_engine	The container engine name used for the pipeline execution
duration	The workflow execution overall duration (wall time)
error_message	The error message reported in the case of nextflow execution failure
error_report	The extended error message reported in case of workflow execution error.
exit_status	The workflow execution (POSIX) exit code
home_dir	The launching user home directory path
launch_dir	The workflow launching directory path
manifest_author	The workflow project author as defined in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_default_branch	The workflow project default Git branch as defined in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_description	The workflow project description as defined in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_gitmodules	The workflow project Git submodule flag in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_home_page	The workflow project Git home page as defined in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_main_script	The workflow project main script file name as defined in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_name	The workflow project name as defined in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_nextflow_version	The workflow project required Nextflow version defined in the nextflow config manifest file
manifest_version	The workflow project version string as defined in the nextflow config manifest file
nextflow_build	The build number of the Nextflow runtime used to launch the workflow execution
nextflow_timestamp	The build timestamp of the Nextflow runtime used to launch the workflow execution
nextflow_version	The version string of the Nextflow runtime used to launch the workflow execution
params	The workflow params used to launch the pipeline execution
profile	The workflow config profile string used for the pipeline execution
project_dir	The directory path where the workflow scripts are stored
project_name	The workflow project name
repository	The workflow project repository
resume	The flag set when a resume execution was submitted
revision	The workflow project revision number
run_name	The workflow run name as given by the Nextflow runtime
script_file	The workflow script file path
script_id	The workflow script checksum number
script_name	The workflow script filename
session_id	The workflow execution unique UUID as assigned by the Nextflow runtime
start	The workflow execution start timestamp
stats_cached_count	The number of cached tasks upon completion
stats_cached_duration	The aggregate time of cached tasks upon completion
stats_cached_pct	The percentage of cached tasks upon completion
stats_compute_time_fmt	The overall compute time as a formatted string
stats_failed_count	The number of failed tasks upon completion
stats_failed_count_fmt	The number of failed tasks upon completion as a formatted string
stats_failed_duration	The aggregate time of failed tasks upon completion
stats_failed_pct	The percentage of failed tasks upon completion
stats_ignored_count	The number of ignored tasks upon completion
stats_ignored_count_fmt	The number of ignored tasks upon completion as a formatted string
stats_ignored_pct	The percentage of ignored tasks upon completion
stats_succeed_count	The number of succeeded tasks upon completion
stats_succeed_count_fmt	The number of succeeded tasks upon completion as a formatted string
stats_succeed_duration	The aggregate time of succeeded tasks upon completion
stats_succeed_pct	The percentage of succeeded tasks upon completion
status	The workflow execution status
submit	The workflow execution submission timestamp
success	The flag reporting whether the execution completed successfully
user_name	The POSIX user name launching that launched the workflow execution
work_dir	The workflow execution scratch directory path

Task Metadata

Name	Description
attempt	Number of Nextflow execution attempts of the task
cloud_zone	Cloud zone where the task execution was allocated
complete	Task execution completion timestamp
container	Container image name used to execute the task
cost	Estimated task compute cost
cpus	Number of CPUs requested
disk	Amount of disk storage requested
duration	Amount of time for the task completion
env	Task execution environment variables
error_action	Action applied on task failure
executor	Executor requested for the task execution
exit_status	Task POSIX exit code on completion
hash	Task unique hash code
inv_ctxt	Number of involuntary context switches
machine_type	Cloud virtual machine type
memory	Amount of memory requested
module	Environment Module requested
name	Task unique name
native_id	Task unique ID as assigned by the underlying execution platform
pcpu	Percentage of CPU used to compute the task
peak_rss	Peak of real memory during the task execution
peak_vmem	Peak of virtual memory during the task execution
pmem	Percentage of memory used to compute the task
price_model	The cloud price model applied for the task
process	The nextflow process name
queue	The compute queue name requested
rchar	Number of bytes the process read, using any read-like system call from files, pipes, tty, etc.
read_bytes	Number of bytes the process directly read from disk
realtime	The time required to compute the task
rss	Real memory (resident set) size of the process
scratch	Flag reporting the task was executed in a local scratch path
script	The task command script
start	Task execution start timestamp
status	The task execution status
submit	Task submission timestamp
syscr	Number of read-like system call invocations that the process performed
syscw	Number of write-like system call invocations that the process performed
tag	Nextflow tag associated to the task execution
task_id	Nextflow task ID
time	Task execution timeout requested
vmem	Virtual memory size used by the task execution
vol_ctxt	Number of voluntary context switches
wchar	Number of bytes the process wrote, using any write-like system call
workdir	Task execution work directory
write_bytes	Number of bytes the process written to disk