SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability in digital preservation

This year we added Amazon S3 Glacier storage to our current S3 storage in our digital preservation system Preservica. S3 is Amazon’s online “cloud storage” for storing files safely, and Glacier is Amazon’s cloud-based, long-term, “cold” storage service. It is designed for archiving the data that we don’t need to access frequently but we do need to keep safe indefinitely.

Glacier is more sustainable because it’s optimized for rarely accessed data, reduces always-on hardware, minimizes cooling needs, and encourages energy-efficient access patterns.

Using S3 for active data and Glacier for infrequently accessed archival data will optimize both cost and energy efficiency. Glacier storage costs are dramatically lower than S3, indicating reduced energy usage per gigabyte due to its simplified storage architecture tailored for long-term retention.