Digital Information Archiving System
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Introduction
Today, most information exists in digital form and in some cases it only exists in digital form. Often, long-term archiving is still done in a non-digital way; storing tangible artefacts (e.g. paper documents, audio tapes, etc.). Archiving of digital information has many advantages, like being able to make the information available to large groups of people, without compromising the safety of the original artefacts (e.g. cultural heritage), or much easier re-use of the archived information to create new or adjusted (digital) information. Commercial interests can become very large, e.g. when a building or an airplane needs to be modified and the digital “blue print” can’t be viewed any more, because the technology with which is was made, has become obsolete. In such cases it might cost a person-year or more to re-create the original drawings.
Sometimes, long term digital preservation is a necessity; e.g. for compliance reasons.
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When digital information is archived for a longer period of time (e.g. >20 years), several problems will eventually arise:
- The medium (e.g. magnetic/optical disk, tape) on which the data is stored will become obsolete, so that it can’t be read any more by any device;
- The medium on which the data is stored will deteriorate, causing loss of data;
- The format in which the data is stored will become obsolete, so that it can’t be displayed any more by any current software;
- The old software that can display the data doesn’t run any more on any of the current hardware & operating system platforms.
So, apart from keeping the digital information available, it must also be kept accessible.
For a 6 minute online presentation explaining the challenges in this area, see the kopal demonstrator. This demonstrator has been created in a German project (see below).
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Description
The DIAS (Digital Information Archiving System) solution addresses all issues mentioned above. It provides a flexible and scalable open deposit library solution for storing and retrieving massive amounts of electronic documents and multimedia files. It conforms to the ISO Reference standard OAIS (Open Archival Information System, originally proposed by NASA) and supports physical and logical digital preservation.
A high level functional model of the OAIS model is shown in figure 1. It shows how the system is separated into six functional entities and related interfaces. For more information about this model, see the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS). |
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DIAS is based upon proven and market-leading products like IBM DB2 Content Manager, IBM WebSphere Application Server and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.
Metadata is stored in the Library Server of DB2 Content Manager and objects are stored in Resource Managers of DB2 Content Manager. IBM DB2 Content Manager has a standard interface with the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, which supports storage management across many storage media (e.g. disk, tape, optical) and devices.
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Technology and Value Proposition
- The DIAS solution allows the manual as well as automated ingest of digital information (assets) into the system.
- Once the asset is successfully stored it will be maintained and preserved (it is placed under “preservation management”). This can be done by implementing preservation functionality that will give signals for stored assets that must be converted or migrated to keep it available for use.
IBM is enhancing and extending the preservation functionality, including the Preservation Layer Model (PLM) and the UVC (Universal Virtual Computer) approach invented by IBM Research. The UVC concept is combination of emulation and migration, which guarantees that assets can be viewed anywhere in the future, independent of changes in technology.
- Stored assets can be accessed either via a web based interface (for assets having standard file types) or via a specific work environment.
- DIAS can be used in many different contexts where long term digital preservation is required. Figure 2 shows a DIAS Solution in the context of a deposit library. The Bibliographic Catalogue (in blue) is not part of DIAS, but DIAS can interface with one. The components indicated in green with a dashed outline are optional; the DIAS-Core (yellow) can be utilized separately in other customer environments. Clear interfaces have been defined to connect (customer owned) components to DIAS-Core.
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Figure 2: IBM’s Digital Information Archiving System (DIAS) in the context of a deposit library.
Legend: ISIP=Interface Submission Information Package, IDIP=Interface Dissemination Information Package, ICIP=Interface Catalogue Information Package, ICSR=Interface Catalogue Search and Retrieve
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Current DIAS-Core Highlights
DIAS-Core Version 2.0 provides the following functions and features in the order from business to technology:
- OAIS Compliant open archiving solution;
- URN (Uniform Resource Name: RFC2141) indexed digital archive;
- Multi-organization support, allowing different organizations to share a common DIAS system;
- Support for DIAS-METS v1.0 format based on METS v1.4 and LMER v1.2 (but not limited to those metadata models; DIAS can be configured to support other models as well);
- Support for migration of Assets;
- Browser based retrieval and access for supported file types;
- Standard and Custom reports in a web based reporting environment;
- Supports many storage media and devices through Tivoli Storage Manager;
- Prepared and focused for Long Term Preservation (LTP), e.g. Preservation Layer Model (PLM) and Universal Virtual Computer (UVC) concepts;
- Physical preservation;
- Load balancing on retrievals;
- Distributed AIP-object storage;
- Can integrate with standard security concepts based on LDAP standard;
- Backup and restore through proven Tivoli Storage Manager solution;
- Open, scalable, flexible solution built on open industry standards like J2EE and XML
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Target Customers
Any organization that has the need to store and keep available digital information over many years such as Deposit Libraries, National Archives, Governmental Institutions, Pharmaceuticals, Banks and Insurance Companies will benefit from DIAS. |
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Installed base
DIAS is currently being used by:
- the National Library of the Netherlands for their “e-Depot” for electronic publications (electronic documents and multimedia files). This solution is capable of ingesting thousands of objects per hour;
- kopal (a cooperation of the German National Library, the Göttingen State and University Library, the GWDG and IBM Deutschland GmbH) around which they have created their “koLibRI” (kopal Library for Retrieval and Ingest) tool set for their long-term digital information archive.
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Prerequisites
- Server hardware and software that can run IBM DB2 Content Manager (e.g. IBM/AIX or Sun/Solaris);
- Work stations for manual SIP building;
- Web based clients or specific work stations for access.
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Required Services
IBM Global Services will discuss potential consulting, implementation, customization, and maintenance services with interested customers. |
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| If you want to receive more information IBM's Digital Information Archiving System, please complete the following information request. |
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| Read more about IBM's DIAS solution which has been deployed at the National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) in our PDF presentation. |
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| Requires Adobe® Acrobat® Reader®. |
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