Royal Museum of Central Africa Tervuren Belgium Patricia
Royal Museum of Central Africa Tervuren, Belgium Patricia Mergen, James Davy , André De Mûelenaere Patricia. Mergen@africamuseum. be
Who we are Important, unique, multidisciplinary Institution focusing on the past and present societies and natural environments of Africa, in particular Central Africa.
Some Figures ! (2009) - 308 staff members (118 scientists) - Exhibitions : 162 960 visitors - Education and Culture : 53084 participants - In the Media : 405 press releases and TV/Radio Shows
Some Facts ! Not just a Museum ! But also - a Research Institute, - a Library, - an Education Center, … Human Sciences - Archaeology - Ethnography - Colonial History - Contemporary History - Social Anthropology - Linguistics - Ethnomusicology Biology - Vertebrates - Entomology - Invertebrates non-insects - Wood Biology - Molecular Biology - Biodiversity Information and Cybertaxonomy Earth sciences - General Geology - Cartography - Geochemistry - Isotope Geology - Geomorphology Others - Library - Collection Management - Publications - Education - Communication - Museology - ICT ….
Unique and priceless heritage ! 10, 000 animal specimens 6, 000 insects 800, 000 fish 400, 000 19 th century photos of Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo 650 films about DR Congo, Rwanda and Burundi from 1940 to 1960 230, 000 Rock samples 180, 000 ethnographic objects 60, 000 specimens of woody plants 40, 000 aerial photographs 20, 000 geological maps 16, 000 minerals 8, 000 musical instruments 4, 000 works of art 2 km of historical archives (including over 10, 000 letters and photographs, 88 diaries and notes of -among others- Stanley)
Human Sciences Collection Human Sciences TMS (The Museum System) , commercial, licenses per user Test Open Collection Archives (free systems with module for Natural Sciences, but not optimal ….
Natural Sciences (Earth and Biological Sciences) -Each unit its own system for collection management (MS SQL, Postgre. SQL, Access, File Maker, Dbase, … - export to ICT in MS SQL website for public - export to Postgre. SQL GBIF, GIS services … - Ongoing test of RBINS Dar. WIN 2 system for collection management - Projects ; VM machines with mirroring in NBGB (Meise) , negotiation ongoning with NHML for external back-ups.
Starting point : storage survey Based on the survey a several years ago, a total capacity of 22 TB has been foreseen by the different sections of the RMCA : Existing storage : 9 TB Geology : 3, 5 TB Musicology : 700 GB Publications : 100 GB Zoology : 4, 6 TB Linguistics : 1 TB Collections Management : 2, 6 TB Administration : 30 GB Africa institute : 65 GB Prehistory : 105 GB History : 278 GB TOTAL 21986 GB rounded up to 22 TB But was before BHL-Europe, Open Up!, Cartesius and areal Photographs projects !!! need to scale up 17/03/2011 André De Mûelenaere - ICT 8
Virtualization using VMware Old situation : VM 1 : 12 GB RAM, 10 TB, 14 VM (2003) VM 2 : 12 GB RAM, 200 GB, 8 VM (2005) VMi 3 : 2 GB RAM, 36 GB, 1 VM (gift from FUNDP Namur) VMi 4 : 2 GB RAM, 36 GB, 1 VM (gift from FUNDP Namur) VMi 5 : 2 GB RAM, 36 GB, 1 VM (gift from FUNDP Namur) VMi 6 : 2 GB RAM, 36 GB, 1 VM (gift from FUNDP Namur) New systems : Cluster of 4 physical servers : 4 x 16 GB RAM with VMotion & DRS SAN Storage : 5 TB FC + 22 TB SATAII Automated Backup library Present situation : All VM hosts (1 -6) have been migrated onto the new SAN system SAN storage is available and ready to use, we have to put policies in place to start using it along with backup procedures 17/03/2011 André De Mûelenaere - ICT 9
6 levels in the SAN configuration Storage Group Partition Virtual Disk LUN RAID array Datastore 17/03/2011 André De Mûelenaere - ICT 10
Storage strategy FC disks vs SATAII disks vs backup tapes The SAN storage offers ca 22 TB of raw SATAII disks, ca 5 TB of raw FC disks and ca 37, 5 TB of raw tape storage (which can be extended with additional magazines) These storage can all be extended, there are still free slots in the SAN The raw storage has to be diminished with an appropriate number of Hot Spare disks (3 disks for the moment) FC disks will be used for virtual machines that needs performance and fast access SATAII disks will be used to store low resolution copies of the digitized collections and frequently accessed archives tapes storage will be used for the storage of huge original copies of digitized collections and not frequently accessed archives We need a strong policy to decide on which storage every data will be placed 17/03/2011 André De Mûelenaere - ICT 11
Conclusion and follow up We have now sufficient disk space for the core needs of our institution We have to decide on which storage the sets of data will be placed Based on the policies we will put in place, the datas can be moved from one storage to another (typically from online towards nearline and offline storages) Every section will be asked to define on which storage their datas will be placed and from that point we will be able to move forward and organize our datas and their access 17/03/2011 André De Mûelenaere - ICT 12
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