A digital repository is a living system that must be able to monitor changing conditions and adapt to fulfill its mission of protecting and providing access to long-term and permanent digital objects. Given the scale and scope of permanent electronic state/territory government records, dedicated infrastructure and flexible frameworks are required to align and sync all the moving parts and players.
A sustainable digital preservation program needs to be supported by people with the right skills and knowledge or access to such knowledge. Work with external partners, train existing staff, and/or hire new staff with specialized skills.
Consider how expertise or technical infrastructure can be “outsourced” to supplement the work of your Archives/RM unit staff and IT peers. Commercial and open-source digital preservation systems and tools are available which generate checksums, integrate workflows, access portals, characterize files against format registries, perform virus/integrity checks and many other operations. Cloud storage and services are widely accepted in the public sector and can provide cost and service level agreement alternatives to enterprise backup and archiving services.