Challenges and Opportunities in Repository Interoperation 

Martin HalbertMetaArchive CooperativeThursday, June 25, 2009NDIIPP Annual MeetingWashington, D.C.

Trying to develop standards, processes, and tools for inter-repositing needs

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Some things NDIIPP Partners have learned how to do

Exchange data between repositoriesEchoDEP HANDS (Hub and Spoke)NDIIPP/CDL Bagit

Get data out of repositories and ingest into long-term distributed preservation networksChronopolis (SRB/IRODS GRID

Computing)MetaArchive (Private LOCKSS Networks)DataPASS (Private LOCKSS Networks)6/25/2009

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Needs in the National Content Stewardship Internetwork

How can we leverage development efforts across projects with similar aims?i.e. Could Private LOCKSS Networks

projects develop interoperable modules?i.e. Can we use HANDS in other projects?

Can we leverage separate infrastructures that do similar things?Could we back archives up in both PLNs and SRB grids simultaneously?

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Possible Strategies

PLN API or SchemaDiscussed at an exploratory meeting

held February 19 at GA Tech Inter-network interoperation

practicesMetaArchive NHPRC project entails

collaborative testing of data sharing between PLNs and SRB

Adapting HANDS to other projects Also discussed at same GA Tech meeting

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PLN Application Programming Interface might include:

“An application programming interface (API) is a set of routines, data structures, object classes and/or protocols provided by libraries and/or operating system services in order to support the building of applications.”

-Wikipedia definition of API

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Perhaps a PLN Schema? Might include:

A schema for representing technical information common to multiple PLNs

This would be an XML representation of the common technical data needed to operate a private LOCKSS network

Should include a data description of the network as a whole, descriptions of collections, replications expected, common metadata, etc.

May be some possibilities of combining parts of the DataPASS and MetaArchive schemas with the elements of the LOCKSS title DB

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Proposed next steps

Form an inter-institutional working group to develop a PLN schema

The schema should capture the “thou-shalts” that drive a PLN

Should identify core operational data we agree on, and mechanism for identifying additional information

Need to capture both status information versus policy information

Proposed participation by LOCKSS, DataPass, and MetaArchive (Pedals? ADPN?)

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