1. WP14 Common Testing Environments
Dr Ashley Hunter,
Tessella plc
David Giaretta (APA and STFC)
APARSEN Year 1 Review, Luxembourg, Feb 2012

2. WP14: Overview Title: Common Testing Environments
Duration: April 2011 – February 2012
WP Leader: Tessella
No. of Tasks: 2
Total PMs: 28
No. of Participants: 13

3. WP14: Objectives
Collect together a set of environments to test the efficacy of tools and techniques for digital preservation against changes in:
Hardware
Software
Environment
Knowledge base of the designated communities
Develop a common ‘shared’ approach to testing
“It is probably reasonable to expect that each proposed preservation technique works well against certain types of digital objects or certain challenges; it is unlikely that there is a universal test.”

4. WP14: Partners Partner Effort (PMs) 1 – STFC 1 2 – APA 6 – CSC 3
7 – DNB
12 – KNAW-DANS
13 – KB
17 – FORTH
25 – UNITN 2
26 – TESSELLA 8
28 – SBA
29 – IKI-RAS
33 – UESSEX
34 – CINES

5. WP14: Tasks 1410 – Identification of testbed techniques and tools
This task collects together the various testbeds which are available
1420 – Testbed suite
This task produces a testbed suite with associated testbed procedures. To facilitate this partners will make their testbeds, procedures, test data and software available to other partners.

6. 1410: Test Environments Review Previous Test Environments
Classified as:
Significant Properties based Testbed (SPT)
Transformational Information Properties based Testbed (TIPT)
Designated Community based Testbed (DCT)
Multi-Valent Testbed (MVT)

7. 1420: Test Suite In-house Digital Preservation Test Environments
Safety Deposit Box (SDB), Tessella
KoLibRI, DNB
CASPAR, STFC / APA
SHAMAN*, DNB / InConTec
External Test Environments
Seek a simple process so as to be able to ‘rate’ additional environments through their own statements of capability

8. 1420: Classifications
Use classification schemes to define the known Test Environment landscape
Helps us to move out of our comfort zones
Helps us find out the boundaries of effectiveness of various preservation tools/techniques
Classify Test Cases by:
Object Type (Information or Digital?)
Threat to Access and Re-Use
Preservation Technique (Strategy)
Identify the GAPs in our coverage

9. 1420: Object Types Digitally encoded information objects
Proposal: initially divide up objects as:
Rendered vs non-rendered
Static vs dynamic
Simple vs composite
Passive vs active
Note
these are not clear-cut divisions
there may be other cuts
at least we have to try to think about different types of digital objects

10. 1420: Threats PARSE.insight
Users may be unable to understand or use the data e.g. the semantics, format, processes or algorithms involved.
Non-maintainability of essential hardware, software or support environment may make the information inaccessible.
The chain of evidence may be lost and there may be lack of certainty of provenance or authenticity.
Access and use restrictions may make it difficult to reuse data, or alternatively may not be respected in future.
Loss of ability to identify the location of data.
The current custodian of the data, whether an organisation or project, may cease to exist at some point in the future.
The ones we trust to look after the digital holdings may let us down.

11. } 1420: Techniques Transformation Emulation RepInfo Network
Changes of the bit-sequences of Content Data Object }
Emulators are RepInfo
NO changes of the bit-sequences of Content Data Object
Extended to Preservation Networks
Other Approaches?

12. 1420: User Scenarios
These define the Digital Preservation test cases used to evaluate each of the test environments
Initially based on contributions from APARSEN Partners
Seek contributions from other active projects, or organisations, or individuals to expand our horizons!

13. 1420: User Scenario Template

14. 1420: Example User Scenario

15. 1420: Analysis of User Scenarios
Develop a Test Environment capability matrix
Extract unique combinations of information object, threat, strategy (Test Cases)
Rate the ability of each Test Environment to each Test Case
Plot the matrix
Analysis also reveals interesting behaviours
Images for Machine Vision (non human) interpretation
Audio files containing data other than sound (container)

16. Preliminary view

17. 1420: Test Environment Landscape
Define current capability space
See landscape change with time
Identifies areas fur further analysis and research by the DP community

18. WP14: Next Steps Conclude the gathering of User Scenarios
Analyse classifications of Objects, Threats and Techniques into unique tests cases
Evaluate Test Environments against test cases
Create a current snapshot of the Digital Preservation Landscape
Identify GAPs in DP Landscape
3 – 6 month extension in time (not cost) to allow partners to complete these activities

19. Network of Excellence