INFuture 2011 Zagreb Clive Billenness University of Portsmouth

1. Digital Preservation – Business As Usual INFuture 2011 Zagreb Clive Billenness University of Portsmouth

2. The Digital Universe • Estimated growth rate: ca. 60% • → 1,700 Exabytes in 2011 ! • Estimated volume of digital information worldwide in 2007: 281 Exabytes source: “The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe” IDC White Paper, March 2008 http://www.emc.com/collateral/analyst-reports/diverse-exploding-digital-universe.pdf

3. In 10 years: 70% org.s hold >100TB42% org.s hold > 1PB Data Quantities to Preserve Planets User Survey (206 organisations) Now: >80% org.s hold <100TB Scalability important High content volumes High ingest rates High retrieval rates 238 DVD’s = 1 Terabyte 238,000 DVD’s = 1 Petabyte

4. Digital Preservation is now a global issue • Libraries & Archives • Financial • Medical & Pharmaceutical • Aviation • Petrochemical • Nuclear • Judicial

5. The Challenges • Hard to prove a return on investment in Digital Preservation • Do Nothing option is always easy • Digital Preservation is rarely considered when systems being procured and designed • Problems often not identified until a system is being replaced • By the time a problem is identified, solutions are expensive, time-consuming and often incomplete

7. WHAT MOTIVATES DIGITAL PRESERVATION ? RISK

8. The Risk Management Cycle Identify Review and Update Assess Implement Plan

9. 3 Possible core risk areas • Data format obsolescence • Hardware obsolescence / deterioration • Data carrier obsolescence / deterioration

10. Possible responses • Do nothing ever (allow data to become extinct) • Do nothing for now • Copy data in its existing format to new media • Migrate data to a newer format

11. Possible responses Digital Preservation Policy Register of Digital Assets • Do nothing ever (allow data to become extinct) • Do nothing for now • Copy data in its existing format to new media • Migrate data to a newer format

12. Media Transfer Tools Planning Characterisation Testing Migration Emulation Framework Knowledge What is available to help Media Obsolescence Format Obsolescence Format Preservation

13. Migration vs Emulation • Emulation • Content remains unchanged • No need to maintain multiple versions • Capable of being configured for multiple environments • Managed at access point • BUT perceived as technically complex • Good knowledge about the original environment must be maintained. • Migration • Brings content ‘up to date’ • Compatible with current systems • Applicable to large collections of identical format objects • BUT not appropriate for complex objects • Short-life solution • Is the migrated object identical ? • Long-term changes through migrations

14. THERE IS NO SINGLE “RIGHT” ANSWER

15. Data volumes are outgrowing processing capacity

16. Data volumes are outgrowing processing capacity ?

17. Conclusions • Data volumes are growing exponentially • Obligations on organisations to retain data in an accessible form are increasing • Loss of data is a RISK and should be managed as such • Organisations are not organising to address these issues • Creating a digital preservation policy will guide all subsequent activities • Many tools and services are already available

18. Thank you for listening www.keep-project.eu