Providing a Conceptual Model for Designing and Supporting the Implementation of the National Clouding Archive of Iran

Cloud computing is one of the new forms of information services that has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. In order to use the infrastructure and cloud computing services in the archive centers, it is necessary to be located in the cloud space by providing models, services and applications of these centers. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide a conceptual model for designing and supporting the implementation of cloud computing in the National Archive of Iran.

The approach of the present study is combination and is based on Library Studies, Meta-synthesis and survey. In Meta-synthesis and library study method research slips were used for gathering data, and in survey method a researcher-constructed questionnaire was used. The statistical population of the present study includes experts on the subject have experience or expertise in archival and cloud computing, or both. The selection of thematic experts has been done by snowball sampling method.

The findings show that 59 components were identified in 11 general dimensions, includes service management, resource management, communications management, cloud management and control, security management, implementation and deployment models, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, user interface and metadata which were confirmed by subject matter experts.

The result of the present study is to provide a model in two general sections: web-based user interface and private cloud. The user interface consists of four sections (Service Catalog, Gateway, Search & Online browsing and Database) and two modules (User registration and security). The private cloud has a 5-layer architecture that includes the interaction which includes three sections: communication services, interoperability, migration and data entry; management includes four sections: cloud management and control, service management, resource management and scalability; security includes eight sections: User authentication, Track Changes, Access control, Digital Signature, encryption and decryption during storage, ISO 27000 series of standards, Methods and levels of authority and Rules of governance;  metadata includes four sections: Descriptive metadata, Administrative metadata, Structural metadata, Preservation metadata; and infrastructure layers. In this layer provides the computing resources, databases, and networks needed to store and retrieve different types of digital objects tailored to deployment patterns. Also, the data stored in the model infrastructure layer can be stored in several other places, taking into account all the security principles, and in a way help to increase the data security and prevent data corruption.