Workshop goals

• Promote learning:– exchange info; stimulate ideas for cooperation; add to

collective knowledge base

• Help NDIIPP/JISC plan the future:– Bring together perspectives– Map areas that need attention– Identify opportunities for collaboration

Distributed Infrastructure, Interoperability models and

services

• Begin with questions:– What do we mean by interoperability?– What do we think the Waters ‘interoperability gap’

is ?– What value does interoperability have to the

preservation community?– How do we assess and test interoperability?

Random points: what is it ?

• Machine layers, network layers, user expectations

• Common interfaces so we can interwork

• Common interfaces so we can change components at will

• Does it mean standards - yes, in part, but it is wider than that

• It’s sharing - in real time and across time

• It’s tools, reusable and shareable

Where is the gap?

• It’s about shared understanding - even where standards or models exist

• It’s there because interoperability has costs - is sub-optimal– so when is the right time to optimise?

• Think of leverage: when are we different for no good reason? When does it help reduce costs, or reach other communities?

Where’s the value?

• Can drive down costs if we all do what we are best at– but we’re not all agreed on this– maybe not at right stage of maturity yet

• Training = building skill sets - harder when no consistency

• Low-level interoperability more valuable in short term

Assess and test

• Do we want to ? Can we ?

• Yes, where it’s about standards

• Not essential, but very useful

• Don’t assume passing the test means perfection - plan for failure of interoperability

A 5 layer model?

• Bits

• Metadata

• Application & performance

• Policy

• Social– are these layers, or is it really a spiral, and is it helpful

to decompose like this anyway?

Some discussion points

• Do we really want distributed infrastructure ?

• Is interoperability simply defined by saying it is what is needed to make distributed infrastructure work?

• How do we establish appropriate trust models?

• How to make costs and benefits of interoperability more coincident?

• Diversity is key: monoculture/groupthink is becoming a problem

More discussion points

• Role of interoperability vs distributed workflow

• Scalability limits of distributed infrastructure: scarcity or value of the resources distributed

• Role of standards to promote or constrain diversity