[Dspace-general] installation and maintenance

Claudia Juergen Claudia.Juergen at ub.uni-dortmund.de
Fri Nov 7 14:01:32 EST 2008


Hi Jody,

seeing the use case of yours, a standard DSpace instance, you won't need a
programmer at all. A sysadmin will set up the system in a day, depending
on how much of the prerequisites are on your server already. You might
need a further day to do the branding.

This supposes that you did some planning (mostly non-technical) in
advance, i.e. deciding which features of DSpace you like to enable,
whether you want customized item displays and submission forms on
collection basis, which metadata to browse, which to ingest  and so on.
Some of these like enabling features in the basic dspace configuration
file need interference on system level and thus someone familiar with it.

The administration which can be done on DSpace UI level requires no
special technical knowledge, ie:
- creating/editing collections and communities
- creating/editing items
- user/group/right mangement
- metadata registry
- bitstream format registry
- supervision
...

Hope that helps

Claudia Jürgen





> Hi Michele!
>   Yes, I read your standard response on the FAQ list, and it was not
> enough information for us, which is why I asked for information based on
> personal experience from the list at large.  As I stated before, we are
> NOT planning to set up a prototype, but a production installation, with
> LDAP authentication, and the programmer involved will probably NOT have
> familiarity with installing Java and database based open source
> applications.
>
>    Since I expect this is probably closer to the norm for many smaller
> institutions, reason tells me others have been in this position before,
> and can likely inform us from their own experience.
>
>
>
> Jody DeRidder
> Digital Services
> University of Alabama Libraries
> Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487
> (205) 348-0511
> jody at jodyderidder.com
> jlderidder at ua.edu
>
>> Hi Jody,
>>
>> It is difficult to fully answer your question as the more
>> customizations you have will increase install time, and the level of
>> experience of the administrator could impact install time.  However,
>> in general DSpace is pretty easy to install and maintain.  Below is
>> our standard response, I hope others in the community can share more
>> personal experiences.
>>
>> best, Michele
>> DSpace Foundation
>>
>> How much time does it take to set up a DSpace installation?
>>
>> A person familiar with installing Java and database based open source
>> applications should be able to complete a prototype DSpace
>> installation in a few hours to a day.  After this experience, and an
>> additional day to a week of exploring the software, a production
>> installation should also take about a day for the basic software in a
>> standalone configuration.  If customizations or local integrations are
>> required (for example, for user authentication), then additional time
>> should be allocated according to the complexity and quantity of the
>> changes required.
>>
>> How much maintenance does a DSpace instance require?
>>
>> While the DSpace software itself requires very little maintenance, the
>> usual IT overhead for data backup, etc. applies.  It is also typical
>> for expectations and requirements to evolve once the instance is
>> operational.  Initial system usage often exposes areas for
>> reorganization, metadata correction, and the inevitable requests to
>> remove prematurely or incorrectly deposited items.  An ongoing
>> maintenance estimate should incorporate IT time based on the expected
>> size of the repository to backup, ongoing local development based on
>> the amount of customization, and repository content management based
>> on the anticipated rate of deposit.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dspace-general mailing list
>> Dspace-general at mit.edu
>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/dspace-general
>>
>
>
>
>
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