The eXtensible Access Method (XAM) Standard

Recent developments in the storage industry have resulted in the creation of an industry standard application programmer’s interface (API) known as XAM, the eXtensible Access Method. The XAM API focuses on the creation and management of reference information (otherwise known as fixed content). Storage vendors supporting the XAM API will provide new benefits to applications that are creating and managing large amounts of fixed content. The benefits described by this paper merit consideration and research by developers creating applications for digital curators. 1 This paper is based on the paper given by the author at the 4th International Digital Curation Conference, December 2008; received July 2008, published October 2009. The International Journal of Digital Curation is an international journal committed to scholarly excellence and dedicated to the advancement of digital curation across a wide range of sectors. ISSN: 1746-8256 The IJDC is published by UKOLN at the University of Bath and is a publication of the Digital Curation Centre. 108 The eXensible Aceess Method (XAM) Standard Introducing the XAM Initiative In 2004 a small group of mass storage device vendors gathered to discuss the growing importance of storing “fixed content”. Fixed content is information that once written does not change (or is changed infrequently). This small group grew to include two more types of interested party: application vendors and end-users. A very specific set of needs was generated: • The needs of application vendors to annotate fixed content, indicate storage policies for fixed content, and manage enormous amounts of individual pieces of fixed content. • The needs of end-users to select from a variety of fixed content applications and storage vendors, perform fixed content migration between different application and storage vendors, and comply with local, national, and international regulations. • The needs of storage vendors to comply with fixed content regulations, efficiently store large amounts of fixed content (and associated metadata), and support the large range of applications that generate fixed content. In December 2005 the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) created the XAM Initiative to address these needs. The members of SNIA are “dedicated to developing and promoting standards, technologies, and educational services to empower organizations in the management of information”. The XAM initiative brought together a variety of application vendors, end-users, members of academia, and storage vendors. As a result of this activity it has recently been announced (SNIA, 2008) that a specification for a standard fixed content API is close to approval (XAM specification 1.0), and conformant software developer kits are nearing release. The XAM specification will also be submitted for consideration as an ANSI/ISO standard. XAM is based upon the time-tested and proven methods of commercial solutions that are already available in the marketplace. These solutions are migrating from their own proprietary APIs towards the XAM industry standard. XAM is also designed with long-term retention in mind. SNIA’s 100 Year Archive Task Force believes that both the OAIS and XAM standards can assist with the “grand technical challenges” of longterm digital information retention, that is, logical and physical migration (SNIA, 2007). The availability of a software development kit (SDK) for XAM means that application developers can write new applications specifically designed for fixed content. Digital curation software falls into this category; this paper is an introduction and a call to research. One of the goals of the XAM API is to become as ubiquitous (Todd, 2006) to application developers as the file system API. 2 Storage Networking Industry Association about page http://www.snia.org/about 3 SNIA 100 Year Archive Task Force http://www.snia.org/forums/dmf/programs/ltacsi/100_year/ The International Journal of Digital Curation Issue 2, Volume 4 | 2009