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- Resilience. As the “archive for archives,” DPN provides a safety net of redundant copies of content stored in multiple, independently operated, preservation repositories. This helps preserve content in the event an archive no longer performs its function as an archive (due to loss of will or change in mission), as well as ensure against the failure of any single repository for technical, economic, legal, or catastrophic reasons.
- Succession. As a preservation network for the academy and by the academy, content preserved in DPN will be covered by succession rights that will allow the content to be used in the future by the academy after the dissolution of the source of the content.
- Economies of scale. DPN will be able to leverage significant resources and offer them to their membership in ways that would not be economically feasible at individual institutions.
- Efficiency. By establishing a network of proven, trustworthy digital repositories with robust replication, fixity services, and an established contracts framework, DPN can lighten the load on individual academic / research repositories that need but have not built out their own preservation environments.
- Extensibility. The Network provides a business, technical, and legal framework that is designed to evolve over time and adapt to changes in the environment that may affect approaches to ensuring the preservation of information over the long term. This includes potentially providing the research community with a platform for higher-order preservation services.
- Security. Information and process security is integral to the Network’s design; by using encrypted transport and optionally encrypting content at rest in trustworthy, dark archives, content in the Network DPN's design. By explicitly acknowledging and addressing the threats using agreed upon security best practices, content in DPN is safeguarded against both exposure and corruption—accidental or intentional—at any single or intentional—in transmission or at rest in any node.