Dear NDSA Infrastructure Working Group Members, 

I just wanted to send out a quick update on our ongoing efforts investigating large scale and cloud storage. First, I am happy to report that we now have three sets of responses to our implementer questions. I have included links to these responses at the bottom of this email for everyone to review. 

At this point, I would like to encourage everyone in the group who has yet to fill out the questions for your institution to do so. If it's easier, you should all feel free to respond to the questions below in an email to me and I will happily post them to the wiki. Please take a few minutes in the next few weeks to fill these out to the best of your ability for your institution, or to adapt them and fill them out for the members you represent. 

Questions for Member Institution Implementations of Large Scale Storage Architectures
1. What is the particular preservation goal or challenge you need to accomplish? (for example, re-use, public access, internal access, legal mandate, etc.)
2. What large scale storage or cloud technologies are you using to meet that challenge? Further, why did you choose these particular technologies?
3. Specifically, what kind of materials are you preserving (text, data sets, images, moving images, web pages, etc.)
4. How big is your collection? (In terms of number of objects and storage space required)
5. What are your performance requirements? Further, why are these your particular requirements?
6. What storage media have you elected to use? (Disk, Tape, etc) Further, why did you choose these particular media?
7. What do you think the key advantages of the system you use?
8. What do you think are the key problems or disadvantages your system present?
9. What important principles informed your decision about the particular tool or service you chose to use?
10. How frequently do you migrate from one system to another? Further, what is it that prompts you to make these migrations?
11. What characteristics of the storage system(s) you use do you feel are particularly well-suited to long-term digital preservation? (High levels of redundancy/resiliency, internal checksumming capabilities, automated tape refresh, etc)
12. What functionality or processes have you developed to augment your storage systems in order to meet preservation goals? (Periodic checksum validation, limited human access or novel use of permissions schemes)
13. Are there tough requirements for digital preservation, e.g. TRAC certification, that you wish were more readily handled by your storage system?

Links to first three sets of responses: 
Penn State: http://www.loc.gov/extranet/wiki/osi/ndiip/ndsa/index.php?title=Penn_State
WGBH: http://www.loc.gov/extranet/wiki/osi/ndiip/ndsa/index.php?title=WGBH_Responses 
National Library of Medicine: http://www.loc.gov/extranet/wiki/osi/ndiip/ndsa/index.php?title=National_Library_of_Medicine_Responses 

Best, 

Trevor Owens
Digital Archivist
National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
Office of Strategic Initiatives
The Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave SE
Washington DC 20540-1300
202.707.7217

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