Project Description
Project Details
Since 1934, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has performed centralized archiving of all federal records since 1934, including print, digital, audio, and video records. All branches of the government must submit their records for review to the archivists at NARA, who then accept or reject records based on their historical importance. Once they deem a record fit for the Archive, they digitize it, if necessary, and place it into the Electronic Records Archive (ERA), NARA’s archival database..
The ERA is a massive system. Developed more than 40 years ago, it contains more than 900 terabytes of data, including over 800 million unique classified and non-classified files. The aging ERA system needed more storage, a more streamlined design, and faster systems. A new ERA 2.0 platform would require three major components in an AWS GovCloud environment to enable future expansion, faster processing, and greater storage for all important federal records:
- A processing component,
- A digital repository, and
- Workflows for scheduling and transfer.
The Challenge: Mission Critical Processing of Federal Records
NARA needed to manage workflows associated with the transfer, review, and approval of documents submitted to the archives by federal agencies. The Business Object Management (BOM) module was needed to smoothly process these documents, accept or reject the documents based on archival standards, and then transfer the records to the digital repository. The solution also needed to be cost-effective and scalable.
Softek’s Solution: A Scalable, Microservice–Enabled Module
Softek designed and developed a modular application framework capable of supporting future workflows with minimal coding. We extended the current AWS GovCloud implementation with a microservice-enabled architecture, providing a scalable solution that now supports more than 200 NARA archivists and 800 federal agency users. Softek’s Agile methodology delivered improved efficiency to the project, and Softek’s DevSecOps tools provided scripted testing to simulate user behaviors across test scenarios, ensured browser and 508 compliance, and incorporated outstanding security requirements.
Softek’s Solution: Cost Savings and Exceptional Performance
Softek created a cost-effective, innovative solution to meet NARAs needs, saving them over $1 million annually. We maximized the agency’s ROI with our Agile methods and provided NARA a scalable system, allowing them to expand BOM functions as their business needs change and grow.
Our Impact
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