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The MIT Libraries and Hewlett-Packard (HP) originally developed DSpace , but the software is now supported by DuraSpace1.0.  But, it quickly became a collaborative project from institutions around the world. These days, it's built/maintained primarily by volunteers, under the support of Lyrasis. The system is now freely available to research institutions world-wide as an open source system that can be customized and extended.

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The success of any open-source project lies with the community contributing its collective energy, knowledge, enthusiasm, and effort. DSpace is developed and supported by the user community, with the help and guidance of DuraSpace Lyrasis. DuraSpace is a not-for-profit organization formed in July 2009. The organizations which supported the DSpace project previously, the DSpace Foundation (2007-2009) and the DSpace Federation (2003-2004) have ceased operation. To learn more about DuraSpace, please visit www.DuraSpace.org. For technical questions about the DSpace software platform, please refer to Who provides technical support for the DSpace platform? listed below.

For a brief history of DSpace project support, see our NOTICE in the codebase.

Open Source

Is DSpace free?

Yes. The DSpace system is freely available as open-source software (see locations below), under the terms of the BSD distribution license. We have also tried to find good open-source tools to package with the DSpace application, all freely available under an open-source license (although not all the same license as the one for DSpace itself), so that you get a complete system along with the part that we created.

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Open-source systems like DSpace are available for anyone to download and run at any type of institution, organization, or company (or even just an individual). Users are also allowed to modify DSpace to meet an organization's specific needs. The BSD distribution license describes its specific terms of use.

DSpace is freely available as open-source software fromGitHub. For more information on the most recent release of the software see the Current Release Notes Releases.

Where can I download the DSpace open-source software?

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There are also basic packagers which allow exporting using the METS standard. For more information on these, see the "Package Importer and Exporter" section of the DSpace Documentation's System Administration chapter (see above link).

References:

Can I import content into DSpace in batch mode?

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  1. DSpace Item Importer - Can import content in batch if it matches the "DSpace Simple Archive Format", which is the format generated by the DSpace Item Exporter
  2. Batch Editing Tool - allows you to import new metadata-only items (not bitstreams) (DSpace 1.6.0 and above).
    • See the Batch Metadata Editing section of the DSpace Documentation's System Administration chapter for more details.
  3. Community and Collection Structure Importer- Allows you to import an entire Community/Collection hierarchy given an XML file.
  4. DSpace Packagers - Packagers exist which support importing METS documents provided they are in the DSpace METS SIP (Submission Information Package) format.
  5. DSpace SWORD Interface - DSpace comes with its own SWORD Server (the 'sword' webapp), which allows any SWORD client to submit documents electronically to DSpace.

References:

Will DSpace interoperate with other systems running at my organization?

Yes, DSpace has documented Java APIs you can customize to allow interoperation with other systems an institution might be running (for example, a department's web document system auto-depositing in DSpace, or a campus data warehouse).as of DSpace 7.x, we have a full featured REST API which can be used to access any of the data withing DSpace.  You can use any programming language to access this API and integrate with other systems>

What sort What sort of persistent identifiers does DSpace use?

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  • Checksum Checker- This tool can be scheduled to perform a full fixity (checksum) check of all (or some) content files stored in your DSpace instance.
    • For more information on the Checksum Checker, see the "Checksum Checker" section of the DSpace Documentation's System Administration chapter

References:

Technical

Where can I find DSpace technical documentation?

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The DSpace Community of developers support one another and exchange ideas and solutions on the DSpace mailing lists. Before you post a question or problem, check to see if your question has been answered already.

More hints/tips are available on the How-To Troubleshoot an Error page.

  • Support - Other support options available based on the type of error.

I've found a bug in the software. How do I report it?

You can report bugs and suggest enhancements through the Software Bug/Feature Tracking System (JIRA).GitHub Issues:

(If you aren't sure where to report the issue, just choose either. We can move the ticket to the proper location later if we need to do so)

Bugs will be fixed as soon as possible, within the limits of the Bugs will be fixed as soon as possible, within the limits of the DSpace team's technical support resources. The team considers all enhancements, and if an enhancement is accepted, adds it to the enhancement list for development as time and resources allow. Of course, any users working with the open-source code are welcome to fix a bug or make an improvement to the system. See our DSpace Contribution Guidelines to learn how.

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DSpace has a very active community of developers which contribute expertise and support through the DSpace-Tech mailing list, and the DSpace wiki. To work with the DSpace system you'll need local technical resources (hardware, technical experts, and so on) to really take advantage of the system. The DSpace web site offers technical documentation, and you can join the DSpace-Tech mailing list, to ask questions or post solutions.

See also our New Developers Hub

In case you require professional assistance, consult one of the Registered DSpace Service Providers.

What sort of hardware does DSpace require? What about sizing the server? How much disk space do I need?

DSpace is written in Java, it will therefore run on any Operating System (Linux, Windows, Mac OSX). DSpace is built on top of free, open-source tools, such as the Apache Web server, the Tomcat Servlet engine, and the PostgreSQL relational database system. For your convenience, we package the necessary JDBC and other drivers and libraries together with DSpace. This set of tools should run on any UNIX-type OS, such as Linux, HP/UX, or Solaris, and you can substitute other libraries if you need to run on another platform. The system runs on anything from a laptop to a $500K server, but there are a few general recommendations for hardware architectures. In a production setting where DSpace is actively used in public, DSpace requires a reasonably good server (see below) and a decent amount of memory and disk storage. For such production usage, following requirements are meant as a guideline:

Minimal DSpace Production system requirements 

  • 2-3 GB of Random Access Memory (RAM)
    • 1GB for Tomcat (e.g. "TOMCAT_OPTS=-server -Xms1024M -Xmx1024M -XX:MaxPermSize=128M -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8")
    • 1GB for Database (PostgreSQL or Oracle).
    • Keep in mind your Operating System also needs some memory to function. So, while DSpace may only need ~2GB of memory, you should ensure the computer itself has at least 3-4GB of RAM available overall.
  • 20 GB of Storage (or roughly enough storage for all the files you wish to store in DSpace)

This minimal system should be able to support DSpace sites of roughly 20,000 items or less.  Though the exact number of items will depend on the amount of activity (searches, accesses, downloads, etc) within the DSpace site.

An empty installation of DSpace will effectively require less than 1GB of storage. The storage estimates are very rough. The actual amount of storage you will need depends on the size of the files you plan to store in DSpace. Files are not compressed in any way, so at a bare minimum you need enough space to store all of your files, plus some extra space for database storage and logfiles. You also will need to be prepared to add additional storage space as you add more content to DSpace.

Approximate cost: around $599. (roughly verified 12/05/2012 through Dell - basic R210II rack server). 

Mid-range DSpace Production system

  • 4 GB of Random Access Memory (RAM)
    • ~2GB for Tomcat (e.g. "TOMCAT_OPTS=-server -Xms2048M -Xmx2048M -XX:MaxPermSize=128M -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8")
    • ~2GB for Database (PostgreSQL or Oracle).
    • Keep in mind your Operating System also needs some memory to function. So, while  a mid-range DSpace may only need ~4GB of memory, you should ensure the computer itself has at least 5-6GB  of RAM available overall.
  • 200 GB of Storage (or roughly enough storage for all the files you wish to store in DSpace)

This mid-range system may be necessary for DSpace sites which either have a larger number of items (roughly 50,000 or more) or a larger amount of activity (searches, accesses, downloads, etc) within the system.  

Again the storage estimates are very rough. The actual amount of storage you will need depends on the size of the files you plan to store in DSpace. Files are not compressed in any way, so at a bare minimum you need enough space to store all of your files, plus some extra space for database storage and logfiles. You also will need to be prepared to add additional storage space as you add more content to DSpace.

High End DSpace Production system requirements:

  • Any modern processor / CPU.  (During normal function, DSpace is not very CPU heavy. However, some backend tasks which are scheduled via "cron" do require CPU. As your amount of content increases, you may need a higher end CPU.)
  • 8GB of Random Access Memory (RAM)
    • ~4-6GB for Tomcat
    • ~2-4GB for Database (PostgreSQL or Oracle)
    • Keep in mind your Operating System also needs some memory to function. So, while  a mid-range DSpace may only need ~8GB of memory, you should ensure the computer itself has at least 9-10GB of RAM available overall.
  • 1TB of Storage (or roughly enough storage for all the files you wish to store in DSpace)
    • Storage examples: 
      • 73 GB 15,000 rpm network disks in RAID accessible over a gigabit connection for storing the database and indexes
      • 7,400 rpm network disks in RAID accessible over a gigabit connection for storing the data whose size can be easily expanded.

The high-end system should only be necessary for extremely large (500,000 or more items) or extremely active DSpace sites. The majority of DSpace sites should not require this high end system until they experience a larger amount of growth or activity.

Approximate cost: around $2500. (roughly verified 12/04/2012 through Dell)

Cloud hosting recommendations

You can use the above hardware recommendation to analyse whether a virtualized cloud hosting platform will meet your needs. For example, when evaluating Amazon's Elastic Cloud services, you can compare the instance types with the above hardware recommendations. Currently, a Small EC2 instances roughly corresponds with the above Minimal Production system requirements (though it is slightly less memory at 1.7GB).  It may be possible to run a production DSpace site on Amazon's small instance to begin with, but you may need to update to a Medium as activity ramps up in your DSpace site.

If you are considering other online hosting services, always keep in mind that you need a service that offers you SSH remote access in order for you to follow the DSpace installation procedures. Many online hosting platforms offer only very basic PHP or MySQL support that don't suffice for installing and operating DSpace.

At all times, your own bandwidth, storage and processor requirements (and associated costs) will vary depending on what you plan to do with the system.

Staging Server

Once you are running DSpace in a production environment, it is highly recommended to run a separate, second instance of DSpace on a test or staging server. Any DSpace upgrades, customizations or other modifications can first be evaluated on this staging server before you move to production. If the actual testing is carried out by only a few people, your staging server will not experience the same levels of load as your production server. Therefor, you can bring down the system requirements for your staging server, even below the above minimum requirements.

To make sure that your staging environment is a realistic simulation of your production server, it is recommended to mirror as much settings or configuration as possible. Needless to say, a staging server on windows will not provide reliable testing outcomes if your actual production machine is running linux and vice versa.

. DSpace is built on top of free, open-source tools, such as the Apache Web server, the Tomcat Servlet engine, and the PostgreSQL relational database system. 

See Performance Tuning DSpaceTo simulate higher levels of load on your staging server, you can use free tools like JMeter.

How much time does it take to set up a DSpace installation?

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When you run into any trouble using or installing DSpace, a large community of users lies at your fingertips in the mailing lists Mailing Lists. The Technical mailing list is the place to be for technical troubleshooting, while more general questions about the software can best be posted to the General Community Mailing list.

In case you require professional assistance, consult one of the Registered DSpace Service Providers.

Metadata

What is Metadata?

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Is there a list of live DSpace services?

See the list of Who's Using DSpace? on DSpace.orgLyrasis Registry of sites: https://registry.lyrasis.org/. If your institution is running DSpace and isn't listed, please send us your information via the form on that page.

Is there a list of DSpace Service Providers?

Yes, see the Service Providers page on DSpace.org for a list of consultants and organizations who can help you build and run your DSpace service.

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There are several good resources available. Start by reading Paul Wheatley's article "A way forward for developments in the digital preservation functions of DSpace : options, issues and recommendations".

For More Information

Still have questions? For general questions about DSpace and DuraSpace, you can search the DSpace-Community mailing list archives archives or post a question to the DSpace-Community mailing list.

For technical or software questions, see the TechnicalFAQ and the DSpace system documentation. You can also search the DSpace-tech archives or post a question to DSpace-tech mailing list.

of DSpace : options, issues and recommendations".

For More Information

See support options Other support options also listed on our Support page