Libraries in the Cloud

Marshall Breeding

Independent Consultant, Author,

Founder and Publisher, Library Technology

Guides

http://www.librarytechnology.org/

http://twitter.com/mbreeding

February 19, 2015 Future Tech Strategies for Libraries

Cloud Computing for Libraries

Volume 11 in The

Tech Set

Published by Neal-

Schuman / ALA

TechSource

ISBN:

781555707859 http://www.neal-

schuman.com/ccl

Book Image Publication Info:

Local Computing

Traditional model

Locally owned and managed

Shifting from departmental to enterprise

Departmental servers co-located in central IT

data centers

Increasingly virtualized

Fundamental technology shift

Mainframe computing

Client/Server

Web-based and Cloud Computing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrick/61952845/

http://soacloudcomputing.blogspot.com/2008/10/cloud-computing.html

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-10-2001/jw-1019-jxta.html

Cloud Computing

Major trend in Information Technology

Term “in the cloud” has devolved into marketing hype, but cloud computing in the form of multi-tenant software as a service offers libraries opportunities to break out of individual silos of automation and engage in widely shared cooperative systems

Opportunities for libraries to leverage their combined efforts into large-scale systems with more end-user impact and organizational efficiencies

Cloud computing –

characteristics

Web-based Interfaces

Externally hosted

Pricing: subscription or utility

Highly abstracted computing model

Provisioned on demand

Scaled according to variable needs

Elastic – consumption of resources can

contract and expand according to demand

ASP / Server Hosting / Co-

location

Vendor hosting of server associated with

single-instance system

Each instance separately installed and

configured

Often deployed on virtualized servers

Client/server systems may require installation

of client software on staff workstations

Multi-tenant SaaS

One Instance serves all users of the service

(institutional or Individual)

Supports institutional or individual partitioning

of functionality

Supports shared data access as needed

Fixes and features deployed once for all users

Web-based interfaces, no workstation clients

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Elimination of capital

expenses for

equipment

Lower annual costs

Redeployment of

technical staff to

more meaningful

activities

Higher revenues relative to software-only arrangements

Provision of infrastructure at scale with lower unit costs

Longer-term relationships with customers

Libraries Providers / Vendors

Cost implications

Total cost of ownership

Do all cost components result in increased or decreased expense

Personnel costs – need less technical administration

Hardware – server hardware eliminated

Software costs: subscription, license, maintenance/support

Indirect costs: energy costs associated with power and cooling of servers in data center

IaaS: balance elimination of hardware investments for ongoing usage fees

Especially attractive for development and prototyping

Budget Allocations

Server Purchase

Server Maintenance

Application software

license

Data Center

overhead

Energy costs

Facility costs

Annual Subscription

Measured Service?

Fixed fees

Factors

Hosting

Software Licenses

Optional modules

Local Computing Cloud Computing

Risks and concerns

Privacy of data

Policies, regulations, jurisdictions

Ownership of data

Avoid vendor lock-in

Integrity of Data

Backups and disaster recovery

Caveats and concerns with

SaaS

Libraries must have adequate bandwidth to

support access to remote applications without

latency

Quality of service agreements that guarantee

performance and reliability factors

Configurability and customizability limitations

Access to API’s

Ability to interoperate with 3rd party

applications

Eg: Connect SaaS ILS with discovery product

from another vendor

Security issues

Most providers implement stronger safeguards

beyond the capacity of local institutions

Virtual instances equally susceptible to poor

security practices as local computing

Data as a service

SaaS provides opportunity for highly shared data models

Bibliographic knowledgebase: one globally shared copy that serves all libraries

Discovery indexes: article and object-level index for resource discovery

E-resource knowledge bases: shared authoritative repository of e-journal holdings

General opportunity to move away from library-by-library metadata management to globally shared workflows

More than a technical transition

Transforming infrastructure Transform resources

Working toward shared infrastructure

Identify areas where libraries can collaborate to share resources

Infrastructure transformation Bandwidth

Shared services

Refocus development from stand-alone applications to platforms

Platform development

APIs that allow individual libraries or campuses to consume content or services according to local needs

Leveraging the Cloud

Moving legacy systems to hosted services

provides some savings to individual institutions

but does not result in dramatic transformation

Globally shared data and metadata models

have the potential to achieve new levels of

operational efficiencies and more powerful

discovery and automation scenarios that

improve the position of libraries overall.

Move up the technology stack

Infrastructure

General support

Library-specific support

Utility programming

Application programming

Strategic technology planning

Creative innovation

SaaS: New financial model

A software-as-a-service

(SaaS) economy model trades

higher upfront costs, incurred

by libraries for equipment and

software licenses, for a

comprehensive annual

subscription fee.

SaaS: Efficient model of computing

Leveraging economies of scale,

SaaS providers have the potential

to enable savings for libraries

over time compared with direct

and indirect costs of maintaining

local servers and related

infrastructure.

Saas: Library Adoption

Newer products … come only via

SaaS. Even for server-based

integrated library systems,

libraries increasingly opt for

hosted options as they acquire

new products, instead of

replacing outdated equipment

underlying existing installations.

Support for Collaborative

Infrastructure

Large-scale Implementations

Scale of any given project is no longer limited

Multi-tenant systems are already supporting

very large numbers of sites

Shared implementation does not necessarily

require more resources than separate ones

Benefits of shared infrastructure

Increased cooperation and resource sharing

Collaborative collection management

Lower costs per institution

Greater universe of content readily available to

patrons

Avoid add-on components for union catalog

and resource requests and routing

Orbis Cascade Alliance

37 Academic Libraries

Combined enrollment of 258,000

9 million titles

1997: implemented dual INN-Reach systems

Orbis and Cascade consortia merged in 2003

Moved from INN-Reach to OCLC Navigator / VDX in 2008

Current strategy to move to shared LMS based on Ex Libris Alma

South AustraliaSA Public Library Network

140 Public Libraries

Northern Ireland

Recently consolidated from 4 regional

networks into one

96 branch libraries

18 mobile libraries

Collections managed through single Axiell

OpenGalaxy LMS

http://www.ni-libraries.net/

Norway: BIBSYS

Provides automation services for:

National Library of Norway

105 Academic and Special Libraries

History of local system development

Originally selected WorldShare Platform for new generation system development (Nov 2010) and later withdrew (Oct 2012)

Primo implemented for Discovery (May 2013)

Alma selected for new shared infrastructure (Jan 2014)

WHELF

Wales Higher Education Libraries

Forum

Institution Prior ILS Bib Records

Aberystwyth University Voyager 677,846

Bangor & Glyndwr University Sierra 591,673

Cardiff University & Welsh National Health

Service

Voyager 856,381

Cardiff Metropolitan University Alto 269,965

National Library of Wales Virtua 6,643,696

Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama Voyager 53,544

Swansea University Voyager 738,399

University of South Wales Symphony 365,602

University of Wales Trinity St. David Horizon 637,326

Total 10,834,43

Orbis Cascade Alliance

Orbis Cascade Alliance

Campus Libraries 37

Aggregated Enrollment 258,000

Total Titles 9 million

Total Items 28 million

California State University Institution Titles Volumes Circulation Staff FTE

Bakersfield 473,134 637,606 15,714 25

Channel Islands 100,433 255,594 24

Chico 850,000 1,265,907 32,182 59

Dominguez Hills 628,193 637,064 8,456 38

East Bay 944,415 1,139,057 33,491 43

Fresno 1,928,624 1,345,398 208,491 78

Fullerton 1,153,714 1,256,867 61,486 74

Humboldt 692,017 807,101 30,300 31

Long Beach 1,198,788 3,073,252 147,461 68

Los Angeles 926,498 983,229 35,665 48

Maritime Academy 42,854 154,820 5,439 8

Monterey Bay 277,228 333,982 27,768 16

Northridge 1,575,695 2,170,589 130,322 138

Pomona 776,251 1,058,236 43,514 48

Sacramento 1,189,093 1,415,562 98,675 66

San Bernardino 935,366 868,453 29,001 90

San Diego 2,340,641 2,513,984 46,402 106

San Francisco 1,524,464 1,677,437 89,161 89

San Jose 1,505,676 1,441,279 94,745 88

San Luis Obispo 805,508 724,531 38,895 62

San Marcos 441,812 538,203 17,071 47

Sonoma 506,040 585,082 191,187 34

Stanislaus 344,311 513,565 31,611 27

Total 21,160,755 25,396,798 1,417,037 1,307

University of California

University of California

Campus Libraries 10

Aggregated

Enrollment

238,686

Total Titles 38 million

Total Items 45 million

The University of California system is in an earlier stage of

consideration regarding the possibility of a shared resource

management system. .

Denmark