Shared Infrastructure Preservation Models

Old Dominion University Research Foundation, Norfolk VA

Investigators

Abstract

Many proposed digital preservation models require personal sacrifice for public good.For example, some proposed long-term storage systems require the contribution of X megabytes of storage today for the promise of Y megabytes of persistent storage (X<<Y). Examples of such systems include the Intermemory, Freenet, Free Haven, and PAST. Despite having many theoretically attractive features, these systems have not found widespread acceptance. While some systems require an ever-increasing user growth and participation that is more like a Ponzi ("pyramid") scheme than a sustainable model for preservation, the main reason is there is little immediate incentive for users to incur a personal, short-term cost for a group, long-term benefit. Intellectual merit This proposal fits somewhere between refreshing (copying the bits to different systems) and migration (transferring data to newer system environments). The research team will look at ways to refresh the data at new locations, but since no assumptionsare made about the target environment, the approaches to be investigated could be used for migration as well. A number of digital preservation models that rely on shared, existing infrastructure will be assessed. The premise is that if archiving can be accomplished within a widely deployed infrastructure whose operational burden is shared among many partners, the resulting system will have only an incremental cost and be tolerant of dynamic participation. The project will consider: - network news transfer protocol (NNTP or "Usenet news") - reliable IP multicast - simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP or "email") Through shared infrastructure, the individual cost for participation is kept low and aggregate system functionality is not greatly impacted by participants joining and leaving. The models primarily focus on creatively utilizing existing Internet protocols and systems in order to decrease the deployment and maintenance burden for participating organizations and will not "automatically" preserve data, but rather should make it easy for those who wish to do so. Broader impacts Lowering the barrier for participation in preservation activities is a direct result of using shared infrastructure. Decoupling preparation and transmission from reception, storage and refreshing allows the participation of various partners, including geographically distributed, underrepresented groups and late arriving participants. Preservation can more easily be incorporated in classroom educational activities because participants can join and leave without explicit registration or direct impact on the system. Current preservation systems, such as LOCKSS, can be discussed in the classroom, but they do not lend themselves to pedagogical participation in the "live" system. Similarly, organizations can now view preservation opportunities (and associated costs) as a continuum and not a binary choice of "doing" or "not doing" preservation.