Equipment

The computer hardware and software infrastructure was selected after review of other Digital Library developments, consultation with technical staff and advisors, consideration of prospects for compatibility and integration with other Library and Museum initiatives, and consideration of suitability for extensive access, scalability, and extensibility of the proposed solution.

Camera and Scanning Workstations

Given that a goal of the project was to develop as broad a base of pilot experience with a full and diverse range of analog formats, consideration was given to major systems in use in other large-scale Digital Library projects. After a review of existing Museum and external projects and consultation with AMNH staff and advisors, a decision was made to acquire a Jenoptik Progres 3012 camera. Additionally, a Jenoptik Eyelike DCS camera was selected (with the assumption that other equipment would be acquired during the life of the project and other that Museum installations and expertise could be used synergistically).
The Progres camera has been in existence for several years and was purchased for the express purpose of scanning the manuscript field notes. This camera has proven to be very successful. The Eyelike camera is known for using a micro-stepping scanning technology as opposed to a line scanning technology. It was purchased to perform digital capture of glass negatives and other materials requiring high-resolutions. It also has a superior scanning cycle, 45 seconds per image as opposed to 4.5 minutes per image with a line scanner. Due to voltage inconsistencies in the Museum, dedicated electrical lines were installed and voltage stabilizers were purchased to correct these problems. MacIntosh G4 computers were required to support these cameras. The accompanying camera software is then installed with a copy of Photoshop to provide a proper "development" environment.

Database Server Specifications, Software and Peripherals

In consequence, a Sun Enterprise 250 server was selected (in contrast to the proposed Sun 450) as a mid-sized server. It was purchased in anticipation of deploying a more distributed system. The Web portion of the Digital Library will reside on a Web server supported by the AMNH Network Systems group. Another server equivalent to the Sun E250 will be purchased at a future date. This kind of distributed configuration allows for redundancy, separation by data type, and security (since not everything is sited in one server). This was an essential consideration due to the intention to make the Digital Library Internet accessible.

The Sun E250 was optimized with two processors, 1 GB of RAM memory and all six bays containing the maximum suitable drive space, 18.2 GB. The drives have been striped with RAID Level 5 so one drive is used as a parity disk. The operating system on the E250 is Solaris 2.6, which is a stable, robust system and conforms to AMNH standards.

Oracle 8i with WebDB was selected as the database environment and extensive provisions for massive storage were negotiated with AMNH Network Systems. Workstations and related peripherals were selected on the basis of the minimum standard developed after a professional and inclusive IT audit of the AMNH Library networks and workstations. Special design consideration was given to the specific applications required at each workstation

Storage Area Network (SAN) Specifications

The Digital Library Project features state-of-the-art hardware architecture to ensure peak performance for our large scale storage needs. We have implemented a Storage Area Network with a capacity of 1TB (1000 GB native, 800 GB after installation of necessary software and RAID 5 striping), housed within 17 hard disks (with 7000 RPM), and connected to our primary server via a fibre channel loop. With this architecture schema we can achieve throughput rates of up to 200MB per second for clustered configurations (note: this is the fastest aggregate throughput on the market as of this writing).

All of the enclosures (including drives, fans, controllers and power supplies) are "hot-swappable" meaning that if any of these components fails, it can be replaced on the fly, without any downtime.

The SAN is also readily expandable simply by attaching additional disk clusters (or JBODs) with minimal expense. The SAN can support an attachment of up to 16 devices or up to 8 terabytes of native storage space.