An Introduction to Tessella and The Safety Deposit Box Platform Mark Evans Digital Archiving Practice Manager

Tessella Overview What we do Key facts What makes us different Information technology & consulting services for leaders in R&D, science, engineering and archiving Archiving is one of our two major technology focus areas Flexible & end to end support Key facts Established in 1980 ~200 S/W Engineers and Consultants 60% of staff hold PhDs What makes us different Archiving and Preservation experts 10 years of practical experience Delivered real preservation solutions Well qualified S/W engineers & consultants Effective partnering at all levels Part of a consortia Large systems integrators Acting as a prime Research colaboratives

Tessella Locations Dedicated archive practices in Abingdon UK Washington DC

Archiving Services Complete Archiving Solution Long Term Support Consultancy Research SDB Technology: Archive & Active Preservation Customization & Integration

Genuine Innovation in Archiving Developed online file format registry with UK National Archives, used to dictate preservation strategies. Open source file identification tool using digital “fingerprint” to identify file formats, developed with UK National Archives. SDB – Safety Deposit Box Open source x86 emulator build for KB (Royal Dutch Library) and Nationaal Archief (Dutch Archive). Digital Archive platform that provides “Active Preservation” Capabilities

Digital Preservation Research 150 man year EU funded research into preservation strategies with 15 leading organisations. Keeping Emulation Environments Portable: - EU funded research for the development of an Emulation Access Platform DataNet program – Development of a national infrastructure to suport the long term preservation and access of scientific data

Example Digital Archiving Projects National / Regional implementations 8 instances of SDB NARA ERA program Subcontractor to Lockheed Martin Life sciences Archiving of digitally signed Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELN) Global Digital Archive Consultancy Needs assessment for UK houses of Parliament Education seminar to agencies in Canada

Preservation Planning Safety Deposit Box Based on the OAIS reference model Evolving technology since 2003 In use at leading institutions OAIS Archival Storage Administration Preservation Planning Data Management Ingest Access Includes “Active Preservation” framework (safeguard against technology obsolescence)

Safety Deposit Box

Safety Deposit Box – Deployed Locations UK National Archives The British Library Dutch National Archives Rotterdam Regional Archives Wellcome Trust Library Swiss Federal Archives Malaysian Archives

Safety Deposit Box - Offerings SDB can be offered in 3 primary configurations Accession builder Standalone Archive SDB search & browse Accession auto-loader Web service API Custom workflows Black-box Archive Custom / 3rd party access 3rd party applications Active Preservation Plug-in Storage adapter 3rd party content storage

Ingest toolkit Create an SDB SIP from received content Receive SIP (files + metadata) by: File copying ftp SOAP Perform SIP Checks: Consistency checks Fixity check Virus check Characterization Ingest Delete requests Ingest Edit requests

Passive Preservation Metadata Store Represents the AIP (SDB supports a logical AIP approach) Based of the Planets core data model Structure of records Association of files to records Technical metadata Descriptive metadata Full audit trail Significant properties Configurable metadata schema Any registered schema , e.g. MARC, PREMIS etc Automated integrity checking

Active Preservation Three main components Characterization What do I have in my archive? Preservation planning What am I going to do to guard against obselescence? Preservation Processing (Migration) Select an approved pathway Execute Validate Re-ingest and associate to the original

Active Preservation Technical registry is the cornerstone of the active preservation framework Contains Factual information Formats Software Hardware Tools Contains Policy Information: Risks / obsolescence Significant properties Tool usage Migration pathways

Characterization Characterize files: - Use a framework approach Basic: file size, last modified date Format Identification (DROID) Format Validation (JHove) Property extraction (Jhove plus others) Embedded object extraction: Iterative characterisation Record Components: Discover Measure invariant properties of the components

Preservation Planning SDB uses a risk based approach Determine risk of formats With properties (e.g. LOC sustainability factors) Determine files at risk Determine records at risk: Build list of things to migrate Look up best migration pathway: Allow manual approval

Preservation Action - Migration Perform approved pathway Complex mappings allowed Partial migrations allowed Validation: Re-measure invariant properties Tool specific Ingest migrated files + metadata

Thank you for your attention Questions Thank you for your attention Mark Evans Mark.evans@tessella.com (1) 240 403 7504 http://www.tessella.com