Digital Preservation Planning: Planets Planets Digital Preservation Planning July 29 2008, London, UK Digital Preservation Planning: Principles, Examples and the future with Planets organized in cooperation with DPC Andreas Rauber Vienna University of Technology http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/~andi 1

Outline Introduction to Planets Kennismaking met Digital Preservation Planets Outline Introduction to Planets Who are we? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? The Planets architecture and components A first glimpse at Planets Preservation Planning 2

Kennismaking met Digital Preservation Planets The Planets project 4-year research and technology development project co-funded by the European Union Addresses core digital preservation challenges Started June 2006 with €15m budget Coordinated by the British Library 16 partners national libraries and archives leading technology companies research universities Builds on strong digital archiving and preservation programmes 3

Planets partners The British Library National Library, Netherlands Austrian National Library State and University Library, Denmark Royal Library, Denmark National Archives, UK Swiss Federal Archives National Archives, Netherlands

Planets partners Tessella Plc IBM Netherlands Microsoft Research Austrian Research Centers GmbH Hatii at University of Glasgow University of Freiburg Vienna University of Technology University of Cologne

The Planets team All Staff Meeting, February 2007 Kennismaking met Digital Preservation Planets The Planets team All Staff Meeting, February 2007 30 at kick-off meeting 65 on the picture 91 participants now 6

Planets Aims and objectives Increase Europe’s ability to ensure long-term access to its cultural and scientific heritage Improve decision-making Control costs through increased automation and scalable infrastructure Ensure wide adoption across the user community Establish a market place for preservation services and tools Build practical solutions Integrate existing expertise, designs and tools Deliver tools and services for operational environments

Outline Introduction to Planets Kennismaking met Digital Preservation Planets Outline Introduction to Planets Who are we? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? The Planets architecture and components A first glimpse at Planets Preservation Planning 8

Planets Architecture Preservation Planning Preservation Action Kennismaking met Digital Preservation Planets Architecture Digital Content Preservation Planning Services Preservation Action Services Organisational Context Test Bed: evaluation and validation services External Context Characterisation Services Preservation planning: tools and services that enable organisations to formulate preservation plans which describe when, where and how action should be taken to preserve their digital content. Multiple factors will be taken into account to arrive at preservation plans, including organisational policies, the content in the organisation’s repositories and how it is used. They also reflect the technical infrastructure, tools, and services that are available. The PP services will not work if we do not understanding the risks associated with or the characteristics of digital materials we wish to preserve. That’s where the preservation characterisation services come into the picture, which enable detailed analysis of a digital object’s technical and intellectual characteristics. Planets will deliver a methodology for formally describing these significant properties, a suite of tools and services for automatically characterising a range of specific object types in accordance with the methodology, and a supporting registry of characterisation information. The PP services also interacts with preservation action services to identify the appropriate actions and to execute preservation plans. PA services include a methodology for describing preservation actions tools and a supporting registry which stores information about preservation action tools and their specific usage. Planets will also deliver a suite of preservation action tools, which perform specific actions on digital objects to ensure their continued accessibility, resulting in a transformation of the object itself (migration) or of the technical environment required for rendering the object (emulation), or a combination of both. Some of these tools could be existing 3rd party tools which are going to be wrapped and delivered as Planets services. The above-mentioned could be seen as a practical implementation of the “Preservation Planning” Function within the OAIS reference model, which I am going to talk in detail on my next slide. The Planets Testbed is another key components which provides a set of evaluation and validation services. The Testbed is a hardware and software environment for the evaluation of tools and services at a number of levels. Individual Characterisation and Preservation Action tools will be assessed and evaluated against a range of performance metrics. The Testbed will also support the testing of the execution of preservation plans. The tesbed services will eventually become available to external organisations, allowing assessment of preservation plans and evaluation of the suitability of third-party tools within specific preservation scenarios. The interoperability framework is the component which has the least to do with preservation but it is the glue that integrates tools and services to provide one easily managed preservation system. Based on a service-oriented architecture the IF decouples tools from their original implementation environment, making them available in a platform and hardware independent manner, while allowing the re- use of existing components. An added benefit is that vendors can develop and provide third- party services with minimal integration effort. The typical operational functions of a preservation system (Preservation Planning, Preservation Action, Characterisation) are wrapped as interoperable Planets services and no longer function only as isolated software components. Integration and automation can be see as the two prominent features of the Planets architecture. Where possible maximum automation are being built into the key preservation processes. The end product is a downloadable “click-and- install” software package that supports the administration, configuration, and deployment of preservation services and workflows which other organisations can take and use in an operational environment. Technical Environment Interoperability Framework 9

Preservation Action Transform content Transform environment Planets Preservation Action Transform content Pluggable infrastructure for third-party migration tools Transform environment Dioscuri: Modular emulation of the full hardware/software environment Universal Virtual Computer (UVC): provides a layered durable approach to emulation Preservation Action Tools registry XML language for describing preservation action tools

Preservation Characterisation Planets Preservation Characterisation Characterisation framework Unifies tools for identifying file formats and extracting object properties Characterisation registry Based on the file format registry PRONOM eXtensible Characterisation Languages (XCL)‏ Family of XML languages for characterising digital objects Comparator verifies effects of preservation actions

Infrastructure and Testbed Planets Infrastructure and Testbed Interoperability Framework provides common basis JBoss Application Server Logging, Security Services Registry services User management and Single-Sign-On Planets Testbed Controlled environment for the execution of experiments Accumulated experience base collected in registry

Preservation planning Planets Preservation planning Collection profiling services Technology watch services Risk assessment of digital objects Preservation planning methodology Tool support: Plato, the Planning Tool

Planets Summary Planets methods, tools, and services help organisations diagnose and treat problems with their digital objects High levels of automation and scalable components reduce costs and improve quality Empirical data enables improved decision making Find out more: http://www.planets-project.eu

Outline Introduction to Planets Kennismaking met Digital Preservation Planets Outline Introduction to Planets Who are we? What are we doing? Why are we doing it? The Planets architecture and components A first glimpse at Planets Preservation Planning 15

Preservation Planning Planets Preservation Planning Why Preservation Planning? Several preservation strategies developed For each strategy: several tools available For each tool: several parameter settings available How do you know which one is most suitable? What are the needs of your users? Now? In the future? Which aspects of an object do you want to preserve? What are the requirements? How to prove in 10, 20, 50, 100 years, that the decision was correct / acceptable at the time it was made?

Preservation Planning Planets Preservation Planning Preservation Planning Workflow Originally developed within the DELOS DP Cluster now refined and integrated within PLANETS Based on Utility Analysis Follows the OAIS model Consistent with requirements specified by OCLC/TRAC and Nestor criteria catalogue

Preservation Planning Planets Preservation Planning 18

Preservation Planning Workflow Kennismaking met Digital Preservation Planets Preservation Planning Workflow 19

Planets Plato

Preservation planning Planets Preservation planning Evaluating preservation strategies Variety of solutions and tools exist Each strategy has unique strengths and weaknesses Requirements vary across settings Decision on which solution to adopt is complex Documentation and accountability is essential Preservation planning assists in decision making Evaluation of strategies on representative sample content according to specific requirements

Thank you very much for your attention and Enjoy the Workshop! Planets Planets Thank you very much for your attention and Enjoy the Workshop! www.planets-project.eu http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/dp 22