The National Archives and Records Administration should consider building its electronic archives using open architecture standards, according to members of an advisory committee assigned to confer with NARA.

The system’s security requirements, however, will dictate whether the Electronic Records Archives could have an open architecture, the committee said last month.

ERA is a $308 million project to preserve government records regardless of format and make them accessible on future hardware and software.

The 18-member ERA Advisory Committee will consult with archives staff on issues related to the system’s purpose, technical development and use. Internet pioneer Robert Kahn, who is chairman, chief executive officer and president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, serves as the committee’s chairman.

“He’s a very strong advocate of a model of open architecture,” said Ken Thibodeau, ERA program director at NARA. Kahn urged the advisory committee to develop an open architecture for the ERA, and committee members concurred.

An open architecture would allow the system’s components to be interchangeable. Engineers could replace components to adapt to future changes in technology. The committee said an open architecture would be important in helping manage the evolution of the system.

The committee also agreed to form two subcommittees, one focused on architecture and the other on usability.

Experts on the architecture subcommittee come from diverse fields, including information technology and archival science. Both subcommittees have experts who are knowledgeable about IT, archival science, history, genealogy and education. Kahn serves on the architecture subcommittee.

Security issues

Thibodeau stressed that security policies will ultimately determine NARA’s ability to create an open architecture and implement open-source software. “While there will be a single design for ERA, it will be implemented as three separate systems encompassing unclassified, secret and top-secret information,” Thibodeau said. “We want the same technological baseline in all three systems so that we are all managing one technology. We will have to get approval for introducing any open-source software.”