The term Data Preservation(DP) refers to the series of managed activities necessary to ensure continued access to digital materials for as long as necessary, while Long-Term Data Preservation(LTDP) can be defined as the ability to provide continued access to digital materials.
 
Some scientific areas, e.g. astrophysics, are well ahead in data preservation. High Energy Physics (HEP) is narrowing the gap:
 
  • DPHEP: Data Preservation in High Energy Physics
  • Past experiments have already successful DP projects in place (e.g. Babar)
  • All LHC experiments are devoting more efforts to data preservation
 
 
A data preservation project can be divided into two main areas:
1 – Bit preservation : how preserve data
2 – Analysis framework preservation : code preservation, infrastructure virtualization and documentation