Reach for the (cloudy) Sky! Exploring cloud-to-cloud archiving of digital records

The National Archives (UK) is committed to making transfer of digital records faster and easier for our users. Or new automated digital transfer service (Transfer Digital Records or TDR) allows depositors to upload records from a network drive environment. However, an increasing number of users (c86% of UK public record bodies) are now using cloud ecosystems, mostly SharePoint Online but also Google drive. The current transfer process requires users to extract records from the cloud environment before they can be transferred (through re-upload to the cloud). This is slow, error-prone and, most importantly, can disrupt or lose metadata (particularly dates). It also introduces challenges in selecting export formats. A significant volume of records is affected – both current records and legacy data that has previously been migrated to the cloud.

The lighting talk will describe the ongoing study of work The National Archives has been undertaking to enable it’s transferring bodies to upload records directly from SharePoint to the Archive, securely and without loss of metadata or file integrity. The study engaged with external partners including Microsoft and will discuss the outcomes and next steps.