Archiving solutions at UNIGE
Archiving takes place at the end of a project to preserve data that has become inactive, in contrast to storage, which deals with live or active data during the project.
Three long-term archiving solutions are available at UNIGE (Yareta, tape archiving and object archiving), the advantages and disadvantages of which are compared below.
Archiving strategy
The selection and preliminary deletion of data is a key element of a good archiving strategy, as it is rarely necessary to keep everything. Data with no potential for reuse but which must be retained for legal or compliance reasons should be archived on less expensive, high-capacity storage systems, such as magnetic tapes.
| Yareta | Tape archiving | Object archiving | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Description / Purpose | Yareta is UNIGE’s digital solution for the long-term archiving and sharing of research data. It is a data repository. | The magnetic tape archiving service, "Spectrum Archive", is suitable for large volumes of data that are rarely used and do not need to be modified or accessed regularly, but must be retained for ten years or more. It is cost-effective and environmentally responsible thanks to its offline design, which minimises electricity consumption. | Object archiving is designed to manage large volumes of unstructured data (photos, videos, audio files, research datasets). These objects are not accessed through an operating system file explorer, but via S3 REST APIs. |
| Recommended for research data | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Certification |
Open Archival Information System, ISO 14721 |
- | - |
| Researcher access point | Accessible from anywhere | Accessible internally or via VPN | Accessible from anywhere via a client application (S3 REST API) |
| Hosting location | UNIGE | To ensure preservation, data are stored on a first site (Uni Dufour) and then copied, as an additional safeguard, through another solution to a second site (Campus Biotech). | UNIGE |
| Internal / external sharing | Easily shareable internally and externally | Limited sharing possibilities | Shareable via S3 REST API |
| Persistent identifier assignment | Yes - DOI | No | No |
| Access | Different access levels (closed, restricted, public) | The web interface allows users and groups to be associated with each storage space and, when retrieval is needed, the relevant files to be selected | Access management by space |
| Accepted sensitivity level | |||
| Security and backups | Two copies of your data are stored in data centres located within the Canton of Geneva | Security and backup provided in collaboration with the IT department | Data replicated, encrypted at rest, no backup |
| Accepted data volume | No limit | No limit | No limit |
| Accepted formats | All | All | All |
| Price |
Free below 50 GB |
|
CHF 75 / TB / year |
| Website | Yareta | Spectrum Archive | - |
| Useful links |
Tutorials (videos) |
Service overview | Service overview |
| Contact |