Howdy Sara,

I've played around a bit with Glacier. It's a bit weird to work with, but
tools keep on improving.

The real question is what you hope to accomplish with it. As its name
implies, it's designed for stuff that is basically frozen. When you take
things out, you need to do so very slowly. The pricing model is such that
if you try to pull out stuff quickly (e.g. you're trying to restore a
system), the cost goes into the stratosphere -- definitely model what
things would look like before using it for purposes like backup.

However, if you have access images that are already backed up on disk or
tape offsite (i.e. system recovery needs already taken care of) and this is
just for storage of high res scans, Glacier could be a good way to go.

As far as the ID's go, I'd embed them directly into the access image
metadata. That way, it's impossible to lose the connection between the
image and the master. You can keep it elsewhere as well, but embedded
metadata is a great place to store critical identifiers.

kyle

On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Sara Amato <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Has anyone leapt on board with Glacier?   We are considering using it for
> long term storage of high res archival scans.  We have derivative copies
> for dissemination, so don’t intend touching these often, if ever.   The
> question I have is how to best track the  Archive ID that glacier attaches
> to deposits, as it looks like that is the only way to retrieve information
> if needed (though you can attach a brief description also that appears on
> the inventory along with the id.)   We’re considering putting the ID in
> Archivist Toolkit, where the location of the dissemination copies is noted,
> but am wondering if there are other tools out there specific for this
> scenario that people are using.
>