Seeking Sustainability

As modern commercial developments in storage infrastructure mature and become increasingly available through popular open-source projects, there are important opportunities for digital preservation communities to leverage the increased efficiency and flexibility that these technologies offer. Not only do these developments offer a way to “modernize” the digital preservation technology stack and make it more efficient, but they also may allow digital preservation communities to seek increased sustainability per the triple bottom line: reduce the costs of operations, reduce required labor to maintain, and reduce the environmental impact. The twin values of affordability and sustainability are core to the mission of digital preservation, and the MetaArchive Cooperative is pursuing the research and development of a modern distributed digital preservation system to better practice these values.

Since its inception in 2004, MetaArchive has used Stanford University’s Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe (LOCKSS) software for its core infrastructure to achieve distributed digital preservation. While LOCKSS has been reliable software for many years, recent evaluations by MetaArchive and a desire to make its practices more sustainable have led to MetaArchive partnering with Keeper Technology to explore software-defined storage and serverless computing technologies for digital preservation. The results of this multi-phase project will be shared with the digital preservation community, with the hopes that it will encourage other digital preservation technological developments with a similar sustainability mindset.