Richard (and George),
Let me apologize for the unintentional attribution of Richard's post as George's (I had purposefully left the "On Mar 27, 2007, at 6:59 PM, George Brock-Nannestad wrote:" - to show George was responding to Richard's post).
Having muddied that up sufficiently....let me address Richard's post below:
I would love to understand the commercial model that will be around in 100 years that accepts data up front for perpetual storage with just a deposit fee.
I would love to understand ANY model, commercial or otherwise, that will be around in 100 years.
Regarding Trusted Digital Repositories, commercial repositories, home- brew repositories, you name it - I don't think ANY of them will exist in their current fashion in 100 years. I'm hopeful we make as much progress in storage as we have in the last 50 years - and if the development cycle is anything like it has been, we'll have 100s of TBs of storage on our desktop (if we still use desks!). That is why many constantly repeat the mantra "migrate, migrate, migrate" digital preservation files.
Richard, you've indicated good results with 3 university/ government entities in another post. That has obviously worked for your clients. Mentioning Enron and Global Crossing as 2 corporate disasters is correct as well, yet neither of them were in the primary business of storing digital archives.
Might I contrast those observations with 3 other IT "disasters" that have cost US taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars (and the privacy of millions more):
1. FBI - Virtual Case File cost overruns: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/20_5/25687-1.html
2. IRS - 5-year track record of cost overruns and delayed deliveries: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? res=9C06E6DC173CF932A25751C1A9659C8B63
3. Dept. of Veteran's Affairs data loss of 20 million Veterans information: http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/05/78812_23NNvaprivacylaw_1.html
What I am trying to support with these examples is that no entity (government or corporate) is immune to budget cuts, cost overruns that shut down the project, going out of business, or otherwise screwing up.
My initial intent for responding to the post was simply to point out there are other options for underfunded archival projects. HDDs and CD-Rs are not the only cost-effective solutions, but I sense my thinking is in the minority....
Best, John
John Spencer BMS/ Chace LLC 1801 8th Ave. S. Suite 200 Nashville, TN 37203 office (615) 385-1251 email: js@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx www.bridgemediasolutions.com
On Mar 28, 2007, at 1:04 PM, Richard L. Hess wrote:
At 12:29 PM 2007-03-28, John Spencer wrote:George,
I'm not ready to go along with the assumption that all commercial digital repositories charge a "per-chunk, per-time-period fee". There are many cost models for these types of service, based on the Service Level Agreement agreed to by the repository and the customer.
To assume "if you don't keep paying your data goes to the bit bucket in the sky", well, isn't the same true for gas, electricity, water, etc? Not quite sure I agree with the statement - and it would seem than anyone using an outsourced digital repository would have physical backups of the data somewhere else, if a proper disaster plan is in place.
Are university systems inherently less prone to disaster?
I'd like more help to understand why university repositories in general are superior to those in the commercial space (and have the implied "added value" of existing in perpetuity).
Best, John
John, you're quoting my words to which George was replying.
I would love to understand the commercial model that will be around in 100 years that accepts data up front for perpetual storage with just a deposit fee.
Cheers,
Richard
Richard L. Hess email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/ contact.htm Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.