Digital Repository Infrastructure: Should you rent or buy?

In 2008, the Alliance Digital Repository launched a consortial, open-source digital repository on locally purchased and managed hardware. After five years and a major software platform migration, our purchased hardware was at the limits of its capacity and much of it was going out of maintenance.

In the first half of 2013, we analyzed whether we should continue to buy hardware and manage it ourselves or switch to an "infrastructure-as-a-service" model. We will explain our decision-making process and provide the rubric we used to evaluate the sustainability of each option, including criteria such as cost, reliability, and scalability. We will also share the solution we ended up selecting (selection deadline is June 2013).