Infrastructure development as part of the “www.muzeach” project
Thousands of photographs were created in each of the five museums participating in the “www.muzeach” project. They are made available to the public as digital collections via the inmuseums.pl website. This required more space for storing files as well as an extensive and modified technical and ICT infrastructure.
For this reason, the museums participating in the project purchased: disk arrays, workstations, servers, network switches, as well as photographic equipment for digitisation laboratories, colour calibration targets, software for image processing etc. The aforementioned purchases raised and unified the standards of digitisation and sharing of collections in all the institutions. In some of the museums, construction works were also carried out to adapt the rooms to the new technical requirements.
The Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów, as the project leader, stores its own and collective data, and is also responsible for the entire ICT system of the project and its maintenance.
To maintain the wmuzeach.pl website, a server and two internet domains were purchased – for the Polish (wmuzeach.pl) and English (inmuseums.pl) versions. SSL certificates were also obtained, which confirm the ownership of the Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów and secure connections by encrypting data.
The Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów also purchased disk arrays and servers that improve data security by duplicating or dispersing systems across various devices. The servers operate in a cluster (several machines connected in a group) and support the current operation of the institution and manage the data stored on the arrays. Failure or shutdown of a single server will not affect the functioning of the museum. The arrays store hundreds of TBs of project leader’s data and copies of the partner institutions’ data. Thanks to the redundant connection of arrays and data synchronisation, failure (or shutdown) of one of the arrays will not result in data loss or limit data access.
Risks to servers, such as flooding or fire, were reduced by building a technical floor (raised to 30 cm) and launching a low-pressure gas extinguishing system, safe for electronic equipment in the server room.
Works in the server room were carried out during the operation of the Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów, which was quite a challenge and required a lot of coordination of activities. It was necessary, e.g. to raise all server cabinets with the equipment located in them and run fibre optic and copper cabling under the cabinets and the technical floor. Then, the non-flammable technical floor was laid and the elements of the gas extinguishing system were installed in the room and under the floor. The extinguishing system was chosen to be as safe as possible for the equipment with the least possible interference with the historic substance of the building. Due to the use of a low-pressure solution, no invasive works or works changing the appearance of the rooms and the building were necessary.
The Museum of King Jan III's Palace at Wilanów also bought workstations, photographic equipment for a digitisation laboratory, colour calibration targets, and software for the processing of graphics and gigapixel files. The aforementioned purchases improved the quality of work, accelerated the processing of graphics, raised and unified the standards of digitisation and sharing of collections, as well as allowed the use of modern techniques of making and sharing digital copies of the collections.
The project “www.muzeach” is co-financed from European Funds and from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National of the Republic of Poland. The project is implemented under the Operational Programme Digital Poland for the years 2014-2020, Priority Axis 2 “E-government and open government,” Action 2.3 “Digital availability and usefulness of public sector information,” Sub-action 2.3.2 “Digital availability of culture resources.”
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