Storage options: open storage

Increasingly repositories will be looking to use large-scale storage services, either locally (e.g. institutionally) or in the 'cloud' (e.g. institutional cloud). Ideally, storage will be 'open', combining open source software with standard hardware storage architectures.

Presentation Applying Open Storage to Institutional Repositories (slides and 2pp extended abstract), 2nd European Workshop on the Use of Digital Object Repository Systems in Digital Libraries (DORSDL2), at ECDL 2008, September 2008
Describes how open storage has been allied to the OAI framework for Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE) to enable repositories managed with different softwares to share and copy data more easily and to be provided with extra services such as preservation services. 

In Preserv we have used an open storage system, an STK 5800 (Honeycomb) provided by Sun Microsystems. This hardware platform is no longer available, but Preserv is working with Sun and others to make the Honeycomb software open and available independently of the original hardware. Find out about the Object Oriented Storage space project from this Sun Microsystems wiki page (or see the original Preserv Honeycomb H2 wiki page).

Sun Webinar Sun STK5800 and EPrints (combined slide show and audio), March 2008
Initial exploration of architectures providing large-scale, resilient storage to EPrints repositories. Possibilities include smaller repositories jointly using a single Honeycomb, or a "Honeycomb cloud". Other options include using a Sun STK 4500 (Thumper) storage machine locally. It is shown how this arrangement might be combined with a Honeycomb for scientific data projects.

To understand how repositories might interface with open storage, see this white paper produced by Preserv
Sun Microsystems White Paper EPrints and the Sun Storagetek 5800 System, A Persistent, Scalable and Interoperable Solution, November 2007
Les Carr sketches some initial architectures and considers the practical implementation of this Sun storage system with an EPrints repository.