CRiB: a service oriented architecture for digital preservation outsourcing

Abstract

This paper identifies some of the most prominent issues present in today’s digital repository systems, which hinder the long-term preservation of digital materials. In order to address some of those issues, we propose the CRiB system, a service oriented architecture (SOA) supported by Web services’ technology, which will enable institutions to outsource part of the functionality that is necessary to carry out effective long-term digital preservation. The proposed system delivers a set of services that client applications will be able to invoke in order to perform complex format migrations; evaluate the outcome of those migrations according to multiple criteria (e.g. data loss and performance); and obtain detailed migration reports for documenting the preservation intervention.