DCH-RP project: Proofs of Concept
2014-05-12
WP5 is the Work Package concerned with in the Proofs of Concepts (PoC), its aim is to validate in concrete experiments (following the SCRUM methodology) assumptions and concepts expressed in the DCH roadmap to preservation, which is the main goal of the project in general.
The PoCs are experiments where e-infrastructure providers and cultural institutions work together to test the actual use of distributed computing and storage infrastructures to store and manage cultural digital resources, starting from real scenarios and use cases.
The second phase of Proofs of Concept, which is currently ongoing, involves four experiments that focus on existing infrastructures and tools that were developed for or are are already in use by other projects run by scientific communities that have data preservation needs. In summary these are as follows:
The first experiment is looking at the suitability of EUDAT services for digital cultural heritage (DCH).
The objective of this experiment is to verify the usability of EUDAT services for DCH communities in the terms of the following requirements:
- assuring data sustainability for the long term
- simple data access
- data sharing
The EUDAT project provides two services that may be of interest to the DCH community:
- B2SAFE - (previously Safe Replication) is the central EUDAT service that offers functionality to replicate datasets across different data centres in a safe and efficient way while maintaining all information required to easily find and query information about the replica locations. See the B2SAFE webpage for details.
- B2SHARE - (previously Simple Store) is a customized version of Invenio (invenio-software.org) designed to offer a simple mechanism for uploading and sharing scientific data with associated metadata. See the B2SHARE webpage and B2SHARE User Documentation for details.
The second experiment is looking at the set of tools and applications available at http://www.scape-project.eu/tools
The third experiment is based on Grid Storage service offered by the e-Culture Science Gateway
and on the participation of cultural institutions in an Identity Federation: some cultural institutions, with the support of an e-infrastructure provider, created an Identity Provider to make it possible to join, through the national NREN, the eduGAIN inter-Federation.
The fourth experiment sets out to explore capabilities and service levels of, potentially long-term, data preservation. This experiment aims to assemble a preservation platform that might be offered as a service to cultural institutions. The experiment is being conducted jointly with the APARSEN project and is analyzing the following technology and use cases:
- Digital persistent identifier technology (PId)
- Digital journal article supplement preservation
- Preserving 3D visualisations
DCH-RP partners are involved in the PoC as users of the e-infrastructure services, and as participants in projects like ARIADNE and OpenAIRE.
The results of the PoC will be integrated into the final version of the Roadmap.
To learn about the results of the first PoC see Deliverable 5.3 - Report on First Proof of Concept (PDF, 1,014 kb)
