Feature support for cloud platforms
Categories:
Purpose: This document provides an overview of the various features available for GCP and AWS-backed Workbench workspaces.
Summary
Verily Workbench provides a secure research environment for governing and analyzing global multimodal data. Within Workbench, researchers can create and share workspaces to create and access cloud resources.
Workbench supports two cloud platforms: Google Cloud (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS). By providing these two options, Workbench makes it easier for users to use data sources, code repositories, or other resources that may be available on their preferred cloud platform.
Core Workbench functionality is available on both AWS and GCP workspaces. However, there are some variations in functionality by platform. These variations are described in the table below.
Feature availability
This table summarizes the current key feature differences between GCP-backed and AWS-backed workspaces and data collections. Please note that available functionality may vary depending on your license terms and configuration.
| CORE WORKSPACE FUNCTIONALITY | ||
|---|---|---|
| Feature | GCP | AWS |
| Workspace creation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Share/manage collaborators | ✅ | ✅ |
| File storage buckets | ✅ Cloud Storage-based | ✅ S3-based |
| Managed resources Cloud resources managed by the workspace |
✅ Cloud Storage buckets, BigQuery datasets | ✅ S3 folders 🟡 Databases in planned development |
| Referenced resources | ✅ | 🔵 In development |
| Data collections | ✅ | 🔵 In development |
| ANALYSIS TOOLS | ||
| Feature | GCP | AWS |
| Interactive apps platform Run common or custom containerized apps |
✅ | ✅ |
| Workspace file sync Apps can read/write data from storage buckets via the filesystem |
✅ | ✅ |
| Workflows / batch processing | ✅ | 🔵 In development. Uses AWS HealthOmics Workflows. |
| Spark clusters | ✅ Dataproc | 🟡 Planned development |
| ENTERPRISE CAPABILITIES | ||
| Feature | GCP | AWS |
| Sign in with enterprise IdP | ✅ | ✅ |
| Configurable billing | ✅ | 🟡 Planned development |
| Access enterprise-owned cloud resources Configuration required |
✅ | ✅ Available, may require configuration |
| Workspace policy controls Regional constraints Group membership constraints Exfiltration-prevention perimeter |
✅ ✅ ✅ |
✅ ✅ 🟡 Planned development |
If you have questions about accessing certain features in your Workbench account, please contact our support team at workbench-support@verily.com.
Last Modified: 27 February 2026