[LINK] Looking for some advice from the link 'brain'

[Karl Auer]

On Mon, 2007-04-02 at 16:16 +1000, Alan L Tyree wrote:
> Does it matter that OO now saves data according to an ISO standard?
> Unless the specifications of the standard disappear, isn't it possible
> to recover? It no longer depends upon the existence of OO or any other
> particular bit of software.

You are still missing the point - when a standard ceases to be used, it
becomes unimportant, is lost. With most modern standards, the time
between useful and dead is typically only a few years, perhaps a decade
or so, with a very few (like ASCII) may last a little longer.

Unless someone has taken specific measures to preserve a standard, it
too will end up sliding into the swamp of time, and all your pristine
tapes, CDs or whatever will be useless.

So I repeat: Consider how long you really need to be able to read your
data, and plan for that. If you want it to last more than a decade or
two, there is only one solution to really long-term storage - continuous
copying and conversion.

It's just not feasible to maintain the software and hardware you need to
keep your data in the format and on the medium it was originally
archived with. That would mean maintain a museum of ever-older hardware
and software. And designs and plans and construction information, so you
can build new hardware when the units you have wear out. Oh, and
maintain all the construction tools you will need, including things like
the capacity to build circuit boards etc.

And of course all this ignores the fact that all currently known media
decay out with time, even if unused. To keep your data safe, you need to
be constantly recopying it anyway. Might as well convert as you go.

Copying and converting keeps your data on current media in a current
format. You can let the hardware and software go; you don't need it
forever, just until all your data has been copied and converted onto the
(now) current formats and media.

The choice of media and the choice of format is almost irrelevant - like
worrying about the brand of car you use to reach the next town. You are
using formats and media as time machines, nothing more. They can and
should be chosen solely for their ability to get you further down the
line reliably and cost-effectively. There is no requirement AT ALL for
the archival format or the archival medium to be remotely related to the
operational formats and media you use.

Of course, none of this deals with the issue of the usability of the
content itself - in a thousand years time, better hope you remembered to
store a few encyclopaedias and dictionaries, otherwise all that content
will be just as useless as if you'd encrypted it and lost the key...

Did I mention storing encryption keys? And algorithms? And the resultant
security nightmare? Oh well, you probably thought of that yourself :-)

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)