Research Forum Presentation: The Chronopolis Preservation DataGrid

Authors
Joseph JaJa, Professor, University of Maryland

Ardys Kozbial, University of California, San Diego Libraries

Robert H. McDonald, Indiana University

David Minor, San Diego Supercomputer Center

Don Sutton, San Diego Supercomputer Center

SAA Presentation
SAA 2008 Presentation

Abstract
In January 2008, the Library of Congress funded the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), the UC San Diego Libraries, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and the University of Maryland’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) to conduct a demonstration and development project of their Chronopolis digital preservation datagrid (http://chronopolis.sdsc.edu).

The Chronopolis preservation framework is based on a Storage Resource Broker (SRB) datagrid (http://www.sdsc.edu/srb) that utilizes multiple (3) geographically dispersed copies of preserved digital content in order to ensure long-lived durability and availability of archived digital content. The Chronopolis Digital Preservation Archive Development and Demonstration Program will be conducted under the aegis of the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) over 14 months (Jan 2008 – March 2009) using up to 50 TB of partner content from the California Digital Library and the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Science Research.

The program will make use of UMIACS’s ACE (Audit Control Environment) to ensure data fixity at all three storage nodes as well as creating a reporting mechanism for network transmission reliability and for data integrity using the SRB replication monitor. The content will include web crawl archives and social science archival material that has been curated under the aegis of the NDIIPP program. This update will include information on the status of the project including preliminary information on best practices for content packaging and transfer as related to these two NDIIPP digital collections.