Notes/Discussion on the current AIPBackupRestorePrototype Implementation
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Crosswalking in AIPs
Although using METS based AIPs seems like a nice, neutral format (which could allow you to easily move content to other systems), is it the "best" format for a DSpace AIP?
Richard R has some concerns that the roundtrip crosswalking could end up being lossy. So, in a normal backup & restore, we'd go through two crosswalks:
- Export = Crosswalk all DSpace objects into a METS-based representation
- Restore = Crosswalk a METS-based representation back into a DSpace Object
If the crosswalks are not kept in sync, the final restored DSpace Object may not be the same as the initial DSpace Object. This becomes even more problematic for institutions which have created their own custom metadata fields, bundles, etc. If the crosswalks don't understand how to deal with that content, it's possible some of it could be lost during the restore process.
Perhaps in the end, we need to determine if there's a better way to serialize this DSpace content. Or, maybe you can "choose your serializer" and decide whether you'd rather serialize your AIPs using METS or a different packaging format (TBD).
Inter-dependencies between AIPs
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