Archives and backups in ERDA

You can secure your data outside ERDA itself. Doing so increases long-term accessibility, and guards against losing data.

An archive is a snapshot of one or more files in ERDA. They are preserved in the state of creation time. Think of taking a still picture or creating a zip file; the original files are subject to change, while the archive are frozen in time.

  • You have invaluable data that you want to keep safe.

  • Frozen archives are stored extra secure with long-term guarantee (10 years).

  • Attach Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to your data.

  • Recurring backup can be created as archives.

  • Mandatory when handing in PhD theses

  • Data that is used in publications or datasets.

  • Useful or required when submitting a paper to a conference or journal

  • Protecting a (historic) dataset from getting altered

  • Making backups on daily, weekly or say monthly basis

  1. Backup archives - Allows for one-time or recurring backups, and manual recovery of data.

  2. Frozen archives - Provides a snapshot of one or more files, frozen in time. There are two subtypes:

    1. Private, frozen archives - Snapshots are held in private archives.

    2. Public, frozen archives - Snapshot for papers, public datasets, etc. Archive can obtain a DOI.

    Note that frozen archives are not available for user deletion.


Getting started with Archives

Initially your archives list is empty, but after adding a few different archives, it could look like the example below.


You can inspect a frozen archive with the green info icon info, edit unfinished archives with the green wrench icon wrench, and, if the system is configured to allow deletion of archives, you can remove them again with the red remove icon delete.

The following steps will guide you through the process of creating, editing, and finalizing and viewing an archive.

Step 1: Create an archive

New archives can be created with the Create a new frozen archive link at the bottom of the page.

As an example, we could create a new archive called “Article Data …” by filling out the resulting form like this:


Step 2: Add files/directories

You can add files to your archive in two ways:

  1. Use the Add file/directory button to select existing files from your ERDA storage. This opens a file browser where you can: - Double-click to select individual files - Right-click folders to select their entire contents

  2. Use the Add upload button to upload new files directly to the archive, similar to the upload feature in the Files section.

Once you’ve added all your files and set your publishing preferences, click Save and Preview to review your archive contents.


Note

The archiving process creates a snapshot of your selected files while keeping the originals intact in ERDA. You can continue to modify your original files freely - any changes you make will not affect the archived version.


Step 3: Preview & Finalize

If you selected Make Dataset Publicly available you can use the Preview publishing button to see a draft of the published archive. At this point, you can continue modifying the archive contents like above through the Edit archive button, until at last you click Finalize archive to actually permanently freeze it and thereby mark it ready for additional tape archiving. This is necessary to get the extra data safety and guarantee that it will remain available for at least 10 years.


Step 4: Viewing the finalinzed archive

After finalizing you can use the “View details” button to see all the details registered about it on the view archive page and use the links to access the associated files.


DOI for public archives

For archives with publish enabled, we also integrate access to request a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) after finalizing the archive. From view archive you click “Register Archive DOI” at the bottom to reach the central UCPH DOI registration portal. Typically, this involves clicking through a standard UCPH login and small DOI intro dialogue to get to the actual DOI metadata schema shown.


Once filled and submitted the request is sent through the UCPH validation procedure and if everything is okay you receive a permanent https://dx.doi.org/XYZ URL alias for your published archive data. From then on you can e.g. use it as a reference in research papers or provide it to research colleagues interested in re-using your published data.

Note

The “minting” of DOIs is done by Data DOI, a service external to ERDA.
ERDA’s page listing the DOI publications are updated on a daily basis.
Once form has been submitted, you can expect to receive an confirmation email from Data DOI within a short time.
Please refer Data DOI’s website for further information and support.