Announcing the ArchivesDirect Price Drop

Announcing the ArchivesDirect Price Drop: Affordable Preservation, Evaluation and Workflows Plus DuraCloud Storage. Carol Minton Morris. DuraSpace. July 21, 2015.
     The ArchivesDirect hosted service from Artefactual Systems and storage in DuraCloud now has reduced pricing. This price includes a hosted instance of Archivematica, training and replicated DuraCloud storage (with a copy in Amazon S3 and one in Amazon Glacier).

The subscription plans are:

1. Assessment. A three month plan with 500 GB of storage. Cost: $4,500
2. Standard. An annual plan with 1 TB of storage. Cost: $9,999
3. Professional. A custom plan. Cost: not available.

Digital Preservation Matters.

ArchivesDirect hosted service

ArchivesDirect website. February 18, 2015.
ArchivesDirect is a web based hosted service of Archivematica offered by DuraSpace for creating OAIS-based digital preservation workflows with content packages that are archived with DuraCloud and Amazon Glacier. It includes open source preservation tools, and generates archival packets using microservices, PREMIS, and mets xml files. ArchivesDirect is intended for small to mid sized institutions. Duraspace is a partnership with DSpace, Fedora, and Vivo.

Pricing and subscription plans include:
ArchivesDirect Standard (System, training, 1 TB): $11,900
ArchivesDirect Digital Preservation Assessment: $4,500
Additional Storage in Amazon S3 and Glacier: $1,000/TB/year

Digital Preservation Matters.

Rosetta and Amazon Storage

Rosetta and Amazon Storage. Chris Erickson. February 2015.
In the search for more file storage, as well as more affordable file storage, we tried Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). The plan was to connect the Rosetta Digital Preservation System to the Amazon cloud storage, and evaluate it as a possible storage solution. There is a free trial. The Free Tier includes 5GB storage, 20,000 Get Requests, and 2,000 Put Request.

Setup:
I tried various configurations, but decided on a single bucket for the files. I setup buckets for the IEs and metadata, but after trying it, decided to only keep the files on Amazon. That would keep the metadata local. I had tried nested folders, but couldn't figure out how to designate that in the storage rules and definition. So I create the folders by time period.

In the Rosetta Admin interface I create a File storage group, using the S3 storage plugin, and then entered the Bucket name, Secret Access Key, Access Key ID, and left the Maximum waiting time at the default. For the test, I set up a retention code for Amazon, and the storage rule used that code to determine what went to the Amazon storage. In a real storage instance, it would be better to use something that would not change, like the producer, etc.

It took a few tests to get everything in sync. The result was that Rosetta stored the content in Amazon just fine. I also tried adding content with a one day retention period, and the content was removed from Amazon after the day. A fixity check task was also able to work without a problem.

This gives us another storage option, though we decided to not use it at present.

Pricing at the time of this comparison, was:

	1 TB		50 TBs
Digital Storage Costs	Annual  Cost	20 Year Projected	Yearly  Charge	10 Year Projected	20 Year Projected	50 Year Projected
Cloud Storage
Amazon S3 - Regular	$360	$7,200	$17,706	$177,060	$354,120	$885,300
Amazon S3 - Copy / Glacier	$480	$9,600	$23,706	$237,060	$474,120	$1,185,300
Amazon S3 - Reduced & Glacier	$288	$5,760	$14,165	$141,648	$283,296	$708,240
DuraSpace - Preservation	$1,800	$36,000	$36,100	$361,000	$722,000	$1,805,000
DuraSpace - Dark copy/Glacier	$1,925	$38,500	$42,350	$423,500	$847,000	$2,117,500
DuraSpace - Enterprise Plus	$5,625	$112,500	$64,425	$644,250	$1,288,500	$3,221,250

More storage options will be considered. 

Digital Preservation Matters.

DuraCloud Now Offers Low Cost Glacier Storage!

DuraCloud Now Offers Low Cost Glacier Storage!  Carol Minton Morris. Duraspace. May 2, 2013.
DuraCloud has increased the long-term storage options that it offers.  This online storage is intended for durable storage, for data archiving and backup, and particularly for data that is infrequently accessed. It has automatic synchronization between primary and secondary copy, and web access to all copies stored in DuraCloud. Pricing is available at http://duracloud.org/pricing.

Digital Preservation Matters.

New DuraCloud Digital Archiving and Preservation Services.

New DuraCloud Digital Archiving and Preservation Services. Press Release. Duraspace. May 1, 2012.
The DuraSpace organization announced new DuraCloud subscription plans that offer three levels digital preservation and archiving services in the cloud. Prices for the new subscription plans are competitive with commercial cloud providers and do not require additional transfer or variable costs.

1. DuraCloud Preservation Basic: for institutions that would like to have two redundant copies of their original content stored at one cloud data center. 
2. DuraCloud Preservation Plus: for institutions that wish to have four redundant copies of their original content stored at two cloud data centers. 
3. DuraCloud Enterprise: a full suite of configurable DuraCloud features for institutions that need multiple DuraCloud sub-accounts for departments, research groups, cross institutional projects, or individuals.

DuraCloud offers automated weekly content health checks, reporting, file repair  and more. It  runs on Amazon AWS, Rackspace and in the near future on the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) Cloud, and provides customers with:
• Copies of the content stored with multiple providers
• Automated health checking of content
• Automated repair of damaged files for Preservation Plus customers
• A full suite of reports
• Online sharing and streaming to any internet-linked device

Digital Preservation Matters.