oxford university preserv2 project session at dlf

My brief, unstructured notes from a presentation by Sally Rumsey from Oxford University on the Preserv2 project, at the DLF Fall 2008 Forum.

• Effort focused primarily on IRs with research data, but applies to all types of repositories.
• “Boxed up -- but innovative at the time – repository environment.” 6 different repositories at Oxford, multiple Fedora & Eprints, some sharing the same storage.
• A desire for decoupled services -- distributed storage and transportable data. Scalability issue.
• Implemented British National Archives seamless flow approach to preservation. There are three categories of activities: Characterization (inventory and format identification). Preservation planning and technology watch (using the PRONOM technology watch service). Preservation Actions (file migration, rendering tools, etc, based on repository policy).
• Smart Storage. Ability to address objects in open storage through a repository layer or directly in the storage system. DROID was used as the tool to verify new items as they are stored, and continually check files in storage. They are implementing a scheduler.
• Oxford looking at Sun Honeycomb server architecture.