Abstract
We describe an efficient method for supporting incremental and full archiving of data bases (e.g., individual files). Customers archive their data bases quite frequently to minimize the duration of data outage. Because of the growing sizes of data bases and the ever increasing need for high availability of data, the efficiency of the archive copy utility is very important. The method presented here minimizes interferences with concurrent transactions by not acquiring any locks on the data being copied. It significantly reduces disk I/Os by not keeping on data pages any extra tracking information in connection with archiving. These features make the archive copy operation be more efficient in terms of resource consumption compared to other methods. The method is also flexible in that it optionally supports direct copying of data from disks, bypassing the DBMS's buffer pool. This reduces buffer pool pollution and processing overheads, and allows the utility to take advantage of device geometries for efficiently retrieving data. We also describe extensions to the method to accommodate the multisystem shared disks transaction environment. The method tolerates gracefully system failures during the archive copy operation.
Secure Digital Archiving of High-Value DataAbstract
Long-term Archiving of Relational Databases with ChronosRecent legislation in the USA and across Europe, such as the Electronic Communications Act 2000 in the UK, and the ESIGN federal bill in the USA, has provided the missing legal aspect to electronic security that is driving the acceptance and utilisation of electronic documentation in high-value commercial and legal domains. Now legal and financial documents, such as contracts or financial records, no longer require handwritten signatures for non-repudiation, and can gain the advantages of electronic indexing, transmission and storage. The resulting growth in both the volume and value of critical electronic documents has caused a surge in digital archiving services, which offer secure storage to protect against media failure, theft and natural disasters, while providing and maintaining the security and integrity that can be built into the data. This paper describes how digital archiving uses PKI-based technologies, including timestamping, and XML structuring to provide controlled access, integrity and legally binding data. Finally, the paper summarises the work in which BT has been involved, from the ETERMS project with the International Chamber of Commerce, to building prototypes offering timestamping and document archiving, enhancing existing uses of digital certificates.
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This article is a general introduction into the special issue of Archival Science on archiving research data . It summarizes the different contributions and gives an overview of the main issues in this special field of archiving. One of the leading questions is how and why research data archives differ from public record offices. In the past, the developments in these two worlds have been rather separate. There are however signs that they are converging in the digital world. In particular, this can be seen in the areas of metadata and Internet dissemination as these are strongly influenced by the rapid changes in information technology. These changes have also led to important new developments in the infrastructure of research data to which special attention is paid. New concepts such as collaboratories, data curation, Open Access and the Open Archives Initiative are discussed.
