LOCKSS Practical testing

KÅRE FIEDLER [email protected]

LOCKSS Practical Testing

Kåre Fiedler Christiansen

Statsbiblioteket


Agenda

• The problem description

• Installation of LOCKSS

• Harvesting from OJS

• Recovering from bit corruption

• Conclusions on the technical evaluation

• Thoughts about LOCKSS for persistent access to subscription journals


The problem description


The Problem Description

Test af Global LOCKSS

I dette hovedelement gennemføres test af Global LOCKSS med henblik på at afklare, om Global LOCKSS er en brugbar platform for lagring af lokale kopier af de videnskabelige publikationer, som universitetsbiblioteket har licens på. Det første skridt bliver udarbejdelse af en liste over krav til systemet som danner udgangspunkt for den efterfølgende test og evaluering. Her tages udgangspunkt i Neil Beagries fjerde anbefaling og de krav, som han har registeret.

Test og evaluering af Global LOCKSS vil omfatte områder som etablering, opsætning, daglig drift og ”trigger events”. Der testes for eksempel, om man kan tilgængeliggøre en dansk publikation som endnu ikke er omfattet af en Global LOCKSS-aftale og om man kan reetablere tabt indhold i universitetsbibliotekets LOCKSS via indhold fra andre LOCKSS servere. Der installeres en LOCKSS-BOX hos SB, KB og DTU Bibliotek for at teste blandt andet denne funktionalitet.

Metodemæssigt anvendes der en blanding af fælles drøftelser, analyser, installation og test af prototyper samt lokale indsatser.



Målet er, at etablere 3 fulde prototyper af Global LOCKSS, hvor alle funktionelle krav som integration med proxyserver, ingest og logning af materiale, korrekt replikering samt stabilitet, er aftestet.

Vurdering: Kravene i pkt. d har været anvendt som udgangspunkt for en test af prototyperne og der er gennemført test ved projektets afslutning.



Deltagere Opgaver Mandemåneder

Test af LOCKSS prototype:

Projektledelse KB Projektledelse og afrapportering 0,5

Krav og opsætning af testmiljø

KB, SB og DTIC

Udarbejdelse af liste over krav. Installation og konfiguration af servere

1,5

Test og evaluering KB, SB og DTIC

Implementering og gennemtestning af indholdmæssige funktionaliteter som Integration til EZ-proxy, Ingest af danske og udenlandske (med eksisterende LOCKSS aftale) publikationer.

3


Installation of LOCKSS



• Installing a LOCKSS box is a reasonably well described process

• While LOCKSS is distributed it does need access to a central server that configures the LOCKSS network

• We asked Stanford to connect it to the Global LOCKSS test network

• Support from Stanford was very helpful



• The central server distributes configuration to the LOCKSS-boxes about:– Participants in the network

– Journals that can be harvested and how

– Whether journals are live

• Standard procedure is to allow the configuration server full access to the LOCKSS box, including SSH



• At a later point it became clear the Global LOCKSS would not host Danish journals

• Instead a Danish Private LOCKSS network was defined

• Stanford was very helpful in setting this up for us



• To run our own Danish Private LOCKSS network, we would need to be able to run the central LOCKSS server

• Installing and running a LOCKSS box is fairly easy. Running a central server does not seem to be so


Harvesting our OJS material



• There are two things needed to harvest an OJS journal– The OJS server must present itself as ready

to be harvested

– The LOCKSS network must be configured to harvest the journal



• Configuring the OJS server is easy

• A standard plugin will present the license and structure of the journal for a LOCKSS network to harvest it

• In newer versions of OJS the plugin supports more granularity for private LOCKSS networks



• Configuring the LOCKSS network to be able to harvest the material turns out to be something done on the central configuration server

• Again Stanford was very helpful. If we want to run out own configuration server we need to make this configuration

• Once it has been set up, harvesting the material is a matter of a single click


Recovering from bit corruption



• We set up four test scenarios– The file is missing, but available at the journal

server

– The file is missing, and not available at the journal server

– The file is corrupted, but available at the journal server

– The file is corrupted, and not available at the journal server





• The bit errors were all discovered• The first set of errors introduced were

discovered without any intervention

• In the second set we did a manual check (both to test this, and to reduce the time)

• The journals were reharvested from the journal server when it was available

• The journals were harvested from other LOCKSS boxes when it was not



• The central server may update the configuration for the journal to be permanently offline


LOCKSS Evaluation


LOCKSS technical evaluation conclusions

• The LOCKSS box software seems robust and well documented

• The support is excellent

• The end user interfaces are ”design by engineers” - fully functional but sometimes quirky

• The central server seems complex and less documented


LOCKSS for persistent access to subscription journals?

• Technical considerations– The software is robust and functional

– Strong qualifications are needed to run the central server

• Do we want to run it ourselves or can Stanford host it?

• Content considerations– Can we get license agreements to put the

content in the Danish network LOCKSS boxes?– Will the Global LOCKSS agreements cover this?


Questions?

Software

LOCKSS Practical testing