Page 36 - Building Digital Libraries

Choosing a Repository Architecture

• integrate better with other systems
• be fixed quickly when bugs are discovered
However, there are inherent differences between open source and propri-
etary software. For example:
• Procurement is completely different. Many institutions
require a request for proposal (RFP), contracts that must be
vetted by a legal office and signed only by certain individu-
als, and other requirements for proprietary products or
services exceeding a certain dollar amount, but they require
no particular process for OSS.
• Unless you contract a third party to maintain OSS, no
outside party can be held responsible for performance, data
breaches, or certifications required by your institution.
• Unless you contract with a third party, your library must
have the skills needed to install, maintain, and update your
software, as well as migrate all materials out.
• OSS provides access to the code, so extracting resources
and data will be possible if your institution has the techni-
cal expertise. If a proprietary product does not offer export
capabilities or an API with the requisite functionality as
part of the product, future migrations may require the assis-
tance of the vendor.
• If your library has the expertise, it may modify OSS tools for
the specific workflows and features needed by the organization.

Cloud-Based or Locally Hosted?
The term “cloud computing” has no formal technical meaning but is com-
monly used to describe services provided somewhere else, maintained by
someone else, and delivered over a network. The term often implies redun-
dancies to prevent failures, but lacking any specific meaning, the onus is on
the consumer to determine what is meant when the term is used. A cloud
service may or may not be:

• hosted in a secure data center
• more reliable than a locally hosted service
• better maintained than a locally hosted service
• more secure than a locally hosted service
Cloud services vary dramatically, and being “cloud-based” offers no inherent
advantages over locally hosted options—in fact, many institutions maintain
local clouds. A “local cloud” is typically a cluster of computers managed by
your organization and configured to provide resiliencies to failures by the
use of redundancies over a network. However, vendor-maintained cloud
services on encrypted systems in secure data centers may be easier to use,
more reliable, and more secure than any locally provided option.
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