[Moims-dai] Action to suggest restructuring of section 6 of OAIS

Tue Sep 18 14:06:58 UTC 2018

Hi Mark

Yes I should have said something like  “what roles might an OAIS play”.

“Management” had a question mark.

..David

From: MOIMS-DAI <moims-dai-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org> On Behalf Of Mark Conrad
Sent: 18 September 2018 14:43
To: MOIMS-Data Archive Interoperability <moims-dai at mailman.ccsds.org>
Subject: Re: [Moims-dai] Action to suggest restructuring of section 6 of OAIS

A few comments:

" What else might an OAIS be? Looking at Fig 2-1 of OAIS and reading the definitions we see that it could be a Producer or a Consumer." 

An OAIS cannot "be" a Producer or a Consumer. An OAIS can take on the role of a Producer for itself or another OAIS, or Consumer for another OAIS. The roles of Producer, Consumer, and Management, themselves, are defined as being outside of an OAIS.

" Although the glossary does not say that explicitly, an OAIS could be Management – maybe that should be clarified." 

According to Section 2.1:  "Management is the role played by those who set overall OAIS policy as one component in a broader policy domain, for example as part of a larger organization. In other words, Management control of the OAIS is only one of  Management’s responsibilities. Management is not involved in day-to-day Archive operations."

I read this to say that Management (which is outside the OAIS) is responsible for high level policy for the OAIS in the context of the policies of a larger organization that includes the OAIS as one component. If so, how can OAIS 1 play the role of Management for OAIS 2? If OAIS 1 and 2 are both part of the same organization presumably both OAISes are receiving overall policy guidance from the organization's Management.  If the two OAISes are parts of two different organizations, how can OAIS 1 play the role of Management for OAIS 2 since OAIS 1 would not be able to issue overall policy guidance for OAIS 2 that would place that guidance in the overall context of policy for all of organization 2?

Context→

All in a single OAIS Consumer, Producer, Management are outside an OAIS, not "in"

Including other OAIS

Including non-OAIS

OAIS role ↓

Consumer

Independent i.e. using information such as RepInfo which it is preserving I do not understand this. How does an OAIS act as a Consumer for itself?

Collaborating archive

Independent archive

Producer

Independent i.e. creating information to be preserved

Collaborating archive

Independent archive

Management

Independent archive

? See comments about Management, above.

? Independent Archive?

Service user

Independent i.e. using its own services to preserve

Outer OAIS This is one way of denoting this. Not exhaustive.

General distributed archive

Federated archives and or?

Archives with shared functional entities  How does one distinguish one from the other?

Service provider

Independent

i.e. providing services to itself

Independent archive

Inner OAIS This is one way of denoting this. Not exhaustive.

Mark Conrad
NARA Information Services

Systems Engineering Division (IT)
The National Archives and Records Administration
Erma Ora Byrd Conference and Learning Center
Building 494, Room 225
610 State Route 956
Rocket Center, WV  26726

Phone: 304-726-7820
Fax: 304-726-7802
Email: mark.conrad at nara.gov <mailto:mark.conrad at nara.gov>  

On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 3:30 PM, David Giaretta <david at giaretta.org <mailto:david at giaretta.org> > wrote:

I took an action to think about restructuring section 6. 

It seemed to me that one could organise it by starting with an overview which shows (1) how things fit together and (2) gives some idea about whether we are covering all the options.

The following table is my attempt at this.

First let me try to list everything an OAIS might be, in the context of the OAIS standard, and without getting into specific disciplines.

The bulk of OAIS is about essentially a single organisation – note that this does not mean that the OAIS is contained in one room or one building or even one country. It does mean that it is within a single organisation. 

What else might an OAIS be? Looking at Fig 2-1 of OAIS and reading the definitions we see that it could be a Producer or a Consumer. Although the glossary does not say that explicitly, an OAIS could be Management – maybe that should be clarified.

Now looking at the inside of an OAIS, in general terms, one can say that an OAIS may be a service user or a service provider.

I hope this is exhaustive.

Then one can think of all the “combinations” – it could be an OAIS by itself, or with one or more other OAISes and other things which are not OAISes.

We can draw up the following table which tries to position the various pieces of text which are in the updated OAIS draft in a way which I hope is reasonably self-explanatory.

Context→

All in a single OAIS

Including other OAIS

Including non-OAIS

OAIS role ↓

Consumer

Independent i.e. using information such as RepInfo which it is preserving

Collaborating archive

Independent archive

Producer

Independent i.e. creating information to be preserved

Collaborating archive

Independent archive

Management

Independent archive

?

?

Service user

Independent i.e. using its own services to preserve

Outer OAIS

General distributed archive

Federated archives and

Archives with shared functional entities

Service provider

Independent

i.e. providing services to itself

Independent archive

Inner OAIS

If this seems reasonable then I can provide introductory text and a reorganisation of the chapter. The question marks indicate combinations which probably do not need any additional text – unless someone can suggest something.

Regards

..David 

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