The scalability of preservation systems can be understood by addressing important scalability parameters. These parameters include capacity (in TB or PB), number and size of digital objects, geographical distribution of systems, degree of sharing and concurrency requirements, security issues in a multi-tenant environment and the availability aspects required of objects.

Of particular importance is the development of preservation support services which can be shared by many data curators that can lead to a reduced cost infrastructure.

APARSEN will review the scalability of storage and other techniques used by the consortium partners. Recommendations about scalability will identify important scalability parameters needed for preservation systems. Clear guidelines will be provided on how tools and techniques can be incorporated into testing environments.