1. A computer program product for driving genomic data processing workflows using metadata, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to: initiate, by the processor, a workflow configured to process data, wherein the workflow comprises one or more genomic analysis operations selected from the group consisting of: base calling, variant calling, phylogenetic analysis, primer design, and amplicon design; receiving, at the processor, a request to manage the workflow using metadata comprising: anchoring metadata configured to uniquely identify the workflow by using an alphanumeric string; common metadata comprising one or more characteristics selected from the group consisting of: sample characteristics, processing site characteristics, laboratory characteristics, instrument characteristics, assay characteristics, temporal characteristics, security characteristics and project characteristics; and custom metadata comprising workflow characteristics and/or data characteristics; and associate, by the processor, the metadata with the genomic data; drive, by the processor, at least a portion of the workflow based on the metadata, wherein driving the workflow based at least in part on the metadata comprises: determining new data and/or at least one new processing setting to use in connection with repeating at least a portion of the workflow; and repeating the portion of the workflow using the new data and/or the new processing setting, wherein the determining is based at least in part on the common metadata and/or the custom metadata; and wherein the new data and/or the new processing setting comprise a modified number of permissible gaps in an alignment based at least in part on an average sequence length of input sequence data.
2. The computer program product as recited in claim 1 , further comprising program instructions executable by the processor to cause the processor to: dynamically create at least some of the metadata in response to driving the portion of the workflow; and store the dynamically created metadata.