Libraries in the Cloud

Marshall BreedingIndependent Consultant, Author, Founder and Publisher, Library Technology Guideshttp://www.librarytechnology.org/http://twitter.com/mbreeding

February 19, 2015Future 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 677,846Bangor & 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 738,399University of South Wales Symphon

y365,602

University of Wales Trinity St. David Horizon 637,326

Total   10,834,432

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 25Channel Islands 100,433 255,594   24Chico 850,000 1,265,907 32,182 59Dominguez Hills 628,193 637,064 8,456 38East Bay 944,415 1,139,057 33,491 43Fresno 1,928,624 1,345,398 208,491 78Fullerton 1,153,714 1,256,867 61,486 74Humboldt 692,017 807,101 30,300 31Long Beach 1,198,788 3,073,252 147,461 68Los Angeles 926,498 983,229 35,665 48Maritime Academy 42,854 154,820 5,439 8Monterey Bay 277,228 333,982 27,768 16Northridge 1,575,695 2,170,589 130,322 138Pomona 776,251 1,058,236 43,514 48Sacramento 1,189,093 1,415,562 98,675 66San Bernardino 935,366 868,453 29,001 90San Diego 2,340,641 2,513,984 46,402 106San Francisco 1,524,464 1,677,437 89,161 89San Jose 1,505,676 1,441,279 94,745 88San Luis Obispo 805,508 724,531 38,895 62San Marcos 441,812 538,203 17,071 47Sonoma 506,040 585,082 191,187 34Stanislaus 344,311 513,565 31,611 27

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

University of California

University of CaliforniaCampus Libraries

10

Aggregated Enrollment

238,686

Total Titles 38 millionTotal Items 45 million

The University of California system is in an earlier stage of consideration regarding the possibility of a shared resource management system. .

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