NDSA:Tuesday, Jan 18, 2011

NDSA Infrastructure call, 01/18/2011

On the call:

• Karen Cariani
• Leslie Johnston
• Elizabeth Perkes
• Cal Lee
• Dan Dodge
• Mike Smorul
• Mike Giarlo
• Micah Altman
• Joe Pawletko
• Michelle Galliger
• Cory Snavely
• Curtis Pulford
• Trevor Owens
• Dean Farrell
• Taylor Surface
• Kris Carpenter
• Martin Halbert
• (Apologies to anyone we missed)

Agenda

• Determine if the third Tues of every month at 11:00 works best for the working group call
• Update of the NDSA meeting in December
• Wiki overview - discuss how we want to use it
• Discussion and planning to move forward with our two work issues

Call Schedule

It works for most people. Some have conflicts, but most can make it work.

December 2010 NDSA Organizing Workshop

Over 40 people were in the room, discussing how NDSA could and should be organized. It was a fruitful conversation, with a wide spectrum of views in some areas, with others very close to consensus. The NDSA:Organizing Workshop Notes have been circulated to the organizing group. There is a timeline for document review and ratification by all NDSA members:

• Send revised draft of organizing documents to all members: 2/04/11
• Review and comment period for documents: 2/18/11
• Incorporation of revisions from entire membership: 2/25/11
• Vote by entire membership for ratification: 3/01/11
• Voting period ends: 3/15/11

Please send comments to Michelle or use the wiki.

Kris: One point – During the meeting there was a lot of discussion about tightening down the focus of each working group. One specific topic was coordinating the participation of folks who are signed up for many groups.

Leslie: There will be some natural group membership fluctuations while people select the most appropriate group to be on.

Using the Wiki

Karen: Do all agree that we should use the wiki as a collaborative work space?

All: Yes, but we need to get notifications about new work by email.

Everyone should have an account (Michelle set them up). Log in to generate your password. Your User Name will be the front part of your email address (for example, lesliej or abgr) Then click on "email new password" and a password should be sent to you.

The working group charter we developed during our last call that will be guiding our work can be found on the wiki. It can be found here: NDSA:Infrastructure_Working_Group

Meeting notes are going up soon.

Work

The top topic from the Doodle poll the topic is:

• Investigate, recognize, and document potential preservation emerging practices in the use of large-scale storage and cloud infrastructures.

This one was a very close second so we should consider how we might address both:

• Investigate, share, and recognize emerging practices for use and development and sharing of open source tools and other software that enable digital preservation.

All: Let’s start with cloud storage. Let’s invite experts to speak with us.

Cal: What do we want to learn?

Martin: What are the issues in architecting systems? It is compelling that they can potentially grow seamlessly from small to very large capacity with the same functional capabilities. Can they really? What are the issues?

Kris: Are we asking about services offered by others, or about deploying our own cloud environments? It would be nice to hear about both.

All: Yes.

Unidentified speaker: We need to identify preservation issues for speakers to address. As an example, how will we deal with confidential information, encrypted files, and auditing? What are the preservation risks?

Who will we invite?

• DuraCloud (has worked with multiple commercial providers)
• Microsoft Azure
• Amazon (hosts a contest and shares best examples of use of the cloud)
• NSF (has been making awards around the use of Google and Azure clouds for computation)
• Chronopolis
• Irods
• LOCKSS
• Authors of the Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation

Trevor: Will we set up an Action Group?

All: No, not for this. It’s better as a full group activity.

Mike Smorul: Volunteers to talk about how they have worked with Chronopolis and Duraspace.

Martin: As one of the authors of the Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation, they are working on a follow-up. The folks continuing the work that could give a presentation.

Martin – will talk to Katherine Skinner, and Matt Schultz. (Did Martin also say he would talk to Stanford and LOCKSS)

Leslie: Will invite DuraCloud as the first speaker. Can also talk to Microsoft about Azure. DuraCloud team may be able to help us connect with commercial providers.

Cal: Will talk to Irods team.

Kris - Let’s not forget about personal archiving in the cloud. There are some Silicon Valley companies we might be able to connect with.

Cal: What questions do we need to ask of them to compare each of the different solutions?

Trevor: Suggests that we develop a set of questions as a group to give to presenter s before hand so that all the presenters have common questions.

Draft Questions

• What sort of use cases is your system designed to support? What doesn't this support?
• What preservation strategies or standards would your system support?
• What resources are required to support a solution implemented in your environment
• How can the cloud environment impact digital preservation activities?
• If we put data in your system today what systems and processes are in place so that we can get it back 50 years from now? (Take for granted a sophisticated audience that knows about multiple copies etc.)
• What infrastructure do you rely on?

Kris: There is also a lot of movement toward solutions for legal compliance. We should make sure to bring that up.

Martin: Did anything come out of the LOC _Preservation Storage meeting about the Cloud?

Leslie. Not so much. Will send link to meeting notes.

Martin: When we ask about standards, which do we mean? Do we know?

Cal: We need to find out what standards they are prioritizing.

Martin: If they don’t have an answer, that’s a red flag.

Karen: the NDSA:Cloud Presentations questions will go on the wiki.