4,620 research outputs found
Digital curation and the cloud
Digital curation involves a wide range of activities, many of which could benefit from cloud
deployment to a greater or lesser extent. These range from infrequent, resource-intensive tasks
which benefit from the ability to rapidly provision resources to day-to-day collaborative activities
which can be facilitated by networked cloud services. Associated benefits are offset by risks
such as loss of data or service level, legal and governance incompatibilities and transfer
bottlenecks. There is considerable variability across both risks and benefits according to the
service and deployment models being adopted and the context in which activities are
performed. Some risks, such as legal liabilities, are mitigated by the use of alternative, e.g.,
private cloud models, but this is typically at the expense of benefits such as resource elasticity
and economies of scale. Infrastructure as a Service model may provide a basis on which more
specialised software services may be provided.
There is considerable work to be done in helping institutions understand the cloud and its
associated costs, risks and benefits, and how these compare to their current working methods,
in order that the most beneficial uses of cloud technologies may be identified. Specific
proposals, echoing recent work coordinated by EPSRC and JISC are the development of
advisory, costing and brokering services to facilitate appropriate cloud deployments, the
exploration of opportunities for certifying or accrediting cloud preservation providers, and
the targeted publicity of outputs from pilot studies to the full range of stakeholders within the
curation lifecycle, including data creators and owners, repositories, institutional IT support
professionals and senior manager
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