State Records NSW has awarded IT solutions provider Logicalis a contract to inmplement a new Digital Archives platform for the state.

A project team from Logicalis will partner with the Digital Archives project team as part of the design and development process with implementation of the Digital Archives ICT platform set for the start of April 2012.

The ICT platform for the State Records NSW Digital Archive will consist of integrated server, storage and virtualisation technologies. The Digital Archive system capable of ingesting, preserving and storing digital State archives in the Digital Archive repository will sit on top of this ICT platform. This system is also in design and development stages and is being custom built in-house.

A key component of the infrastructure is the storage platform Isilon. This was chosen by State Records for its scalability and flexibility as well as the inbuilt ‘smarts’ it offers for file checking and integrity. Isilon has been used extensively in the media and film sector as well as by government organisations such as libraries and registry offices.

Other elements of the Digital Archives including a metadata framework, advice for agencies on records migration and a modular set of tools and functions supporting the management and use of long term digital records are in the design and development stages.

The Digital Archives project is a three year project run by State Records NSW to implement a whole of government digital archive to accept, preserve and store digital State archives.