1. Digital Preservation Planning:
Planets
Planets
Digital Preservation Planning
July , London, UK
Digital Preservation Planning:
Principles, Examples and the future with Planets
organized in cooperation with DPC
Andreas Rauber
Vienna University of Technology 1

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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:

15. 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

16. 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?

17. 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

18. Preservation Planning
Planets
Preservation Planning 18

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

20. Planets
Plato

21. 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

22. Thank you very much for your attention and Enjoy the Workshop!
Planets
Planets
Thank you very much for your attention and Enjoy the Workshop! 22