ERA Status, October 2009
The National Archives and Records Administration
The Electronic Records Archives (ERA)
Building the Archives of the Future
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has been developing, testing, and refining the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) System since 2005. In addition NARA successfully completed a production Data Center and Systems Operations Center located at the Allegany Ballistics Lab in Rocket Center, West Virginia.
The ERA system is a technology system and workflow management program designed to store and manage NARA’s electronic records and to manage the lifecycle of paper records and other holdings free from dependence on any specific hardware or software. ERA is needed to help meet NARA’s mission to make Government records available for the future; to protect records that ensure our rights; to help NARA capture, preserve, and provide access to Federal records; and to improve how NARA manages the lifecycle of Federal government records. ERA is being developed in increments between 2005 and 2012. Each increment will build on prior accomplishments and add capabilities and capacity. Two Increments have been developed:
1. June 2008: Increment 1 – The ERA Base Instance (Initial Operating Capability/IOC) FY 2005-2008. Four Federal Agencies were early users:
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (Department of Commerce)
- National Nuclear Security Administration (Dept of Energy)
- Bureau of Labor Statistics (Department of Labor)
- Naval Oceanographic Office (Department of Navy)
Increment 1 Capabilities:
Create, review, and approve Records Schedules (formerly known as theStandard Form/ SF-115);
Create a Requests to Transfer records to NARA; and
Transfer, inspect, and store electronic records
NARA and the four Federal Agencies are using the ERA Base Instance to:
- Create, modify, and delete:
- Records Disposition Schedule (formerly the SF-115)
- Transfer Request (for physical custody of the records)
- Legal Transfer Instrument (The process of Transfer and Legal Requests formerly used a paper form, SF-258)
- Transfer Problem Resolution
- Access the system’s Asset Catalog
- Transfer and ingest electronic records to ERA
- Verify electronic records ingested
Current status (as of October 2009): The ERA Base Instance has ingested 438 gigabytes of data
- 402 Records Schedules
- 900 Records Schedule Items
-1331 Legal Transfer Instruments
-1365 Transfer Requests
By the end of 2009: NARA plans to add
25 Federal Agencies to use the ERA Base Instance
- December 2008: Increment 2 – ERA Executive Office of the President (EOP) Search and Access (SAS) Instance also called the ERA EOP SAS
Increment 2 Capabilities:
- Rapid ingest, search, and retrieval of Executive Office of the President electronic records from the George W. Bush Administration;
- Transformation of proprietary data;
- Simple search and access retrieval;
- Spillage management;
- Access control; and
- Basic case management for special access requests
Current Status of the ERA EOP SAS:
- Transferred 77 Terabytes of Data (Approx. 320 million searchable objects) from the White House to the ERA Data Center (Rocket Center, WVa.)
- Ingested 54.4 Terabytes - (About 105 million searchable objects) into EOP SAS. Remaining data to be ingested by end of FY 2009
- 17,792 Searches have been executed on the ERA EOP SAS Instance.
Coming Soon! Increment 3
- Public Access Instance of ERA (replicated from the Archival Research Catalog (ARC)
- Preservation Framework Prototype for eRecords
- Architecture Evolution
- Congressional Records Instance of ERA
- Active backup planning and analysis
- Expanding record’s preservation and access capabilities
- Processing of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests
- Expand User Base to additional Federal agencies
- Implement active backup and restore capabilities
- Extend storage
For Information about ERA contact:
Telephone: 301-837-0740
Fax: 301-837-0953
E-mail: ERA.Program@nara.gov
ERA Web site: http://www.archives.gov/era/
NARA Web site: http://www.archives.gov/
Page Last Updated: 12/17/09
PDF files require the free Adobe Reader.
More information on Adobe Acrobat PDF files is available on our Accessibility page.
