System Persistence Exercise Area

Publish Date:2017-05-18

    Saving information in the most pristine format and fully preserving the hardware and software environment in which it was run may allow electronic records to be opened and viewed effectively, and all the while ensuring the usability of the preserved files. However, preserving computer hardware and software that have or are about to become obsolete involves high costs and large storage spaces.

   Preservation may be accomplished in the following methods:

1. Preserve hardware only (including the operating system)

2. Preserve software only (which may include database or other related applications)

3. Preserve both hardware and software to build an IT museum

    Currently, ERTSC's System Preservation area is divided into hardware preservation and software preservation. The hardware area preserves server hardware, storage media, and other hardware equipment; the software area preserves operating systems of the respective servers and the software applications needed for file viewing.

1. Preservation of server hardware :

      There are currently 22 servers in the System Preservation Area, which consists of 16 HP servers, 2 IBM servers, and 4 SUN servers. They house a total of 7 operating systems from Windows 2000, Windows 2003, HP UNIX, Red Hat 3.0, SoLaris 9, AIX to CentOS.

2. Preservation of storage media :

      The types of storage media preserved include tape, floppy disk, optical disc etc. Tape media includes rolls, cassettes, LTO, and DDS; in terms of floppy disks, ERTSC houses a collection of optical floppy disks produced by NEC in 1969, the 8-inch floppy, the 5.25-inch floppy introduced in 1976, and the 3.5-inch floppy introduced in 1984; as for optical discs, there are the optical floppy disks produced by NEC in 1969, CD, DVD and LD. Other hardware preserved by ERTSC include the Kiosk virtual file workstation, the OverLand tape reader, the JVC disc cabinet, the 3.5-inch floppy drive, the 3.5-inch diskette storage box, and the disc drive.

3. Preservation of software :

      The range of software preserved includes the e-Correspondence Management System, the file & directory testing software, the file & directory creation software, the mini-size correspondence management system, the Online Archives network, the email archive, the 921 Earthquake knowledge bank, the 921 Earthquake correspondence archive.