The Preservation Storage Criteria provides a list of criteria, or design attributes, for storage that supports the work of digital preservation. Audience --------- The audience for this document includes: - Providers of all or parts of a digital Preservation Storage solution or - Consumers of all or parts of a digital Preservation Storage solution, ranging from institutions just starting out with preservation to institutions with established preservation programs Institutions should adapt the Criteria to their local circumstances. Some criteria may not apply at all, or may apply to some components of their overall preservation storage. Depending on the role an institution plays with regard to Preservation Storage, they may interpret the Criteria from a different perspective. For example, the “Documented access” criterion is defined as “Provides immutable logs and/or reports that show all file system access”. A storage service provider could interpret this criterion to mean that they are responsible for providing the logs and reports, while an institution purchasing Preservation Storage from a vendor could interpret this criterion to mean that they expect to receive the logs and reports. Each of the Criteria could be interpreted as having a “providing” or “receiving” implication, depending on an institution’s role in relation to Preservation Storage. What is Preservation Storage? -------- Preservation Storage supports digital preservation -- “the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary” (DPC, 2015). Preservation Storage can be considered, in part, within the context of the ISO OAIS Reference Model (CCSDS, 2015). In this context, Preservation Storage covers the same functions as the OAIS functional entity “archival storage”, as well as the parts of other OAIS functional entities which are needed to store, maintain in storage, and retrieve from storage, Archival Information Packages or AIPs (Zierau & McGovern, 2014). For example: - Parts of “Preservation Planning” concerned with monitoring technology for storage and bit preservation solutions and practices, media migrations, agreement changes, and the organization and technology needed to fulfil preservation policies at the storage level; and - Parts of “Data Management” that ensure a relationship between preserved data and identification of the data (metadata); and - Parts of “Administration” concerned with policies and standards that relates to preservation at the storage level; and - Parts of “Inges t” concerned with the coordination of updates of different data replica at the storage level. In addition to the context provided by the ISO OAIS Reference Model, Preservation Storage can be considered in terms of: - The evolving technological environment and supporting organization; and - The evolving set of common understandings about digital preservation. How Can the Preservation Criteria be Used? ---- The criteria have been developed as a set of design attributes to consider for a Preservation Storage solution. These can be useful for both consumers and providers of Preservation Storage solutions. Some of the uses for the Criteria include: - Evaluating and comparing Preservation Storage solutions - Determining gap areas in existing Preservation Storage implementations - Informing more detailed requirements for Preservation Storage - As a component of instructional materials on digital preservation - To seed discussions with IT and other relevant parts of an organization about Preservation Storage - To seed discussions within the digital preservation field on Preservation Storage What Else Needs to be Considered? ---- In addition to this Criteria, an individual consumer or institution needs to take into account criteria specific to their own requirements, practices, policies, regulations, laws, and environment in areas such as: - Confidentiality and privacy - Access - Risk management framework - Financial framework - Business continuity See the Criteria Usage Guide for additional key considerations, including cost, risk, and independence. How Were the Criteria Created? --- The Criteria was originally developed by Kate Zwaard, Gail Truman, Sibyl Schaefer, Jane Mandelbaum, Nancy McGovern, Steve Knight and Andrea Goethals in preparation for an iPRES 2016 workshop called “What is Preservation Storage?” (Goethals et al., 2016). Since then, Eld Zierau and Cynthia Wu have joined the original authors in working toward an improved version based on community feedback. The Criteria is currently at version 3, based on feedback from participants at Designing Storage Architectures meetings hosted by the Library of Congress in 2016 and 2017, PASIG meetings in 2016 and 2017, an iPRES 2017 workshop, and through a Google group created to discuss the topic. To comment on this document or to join the conversation, please join the dpstorage group at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/dpstorage.