9. Keeper

Archiving and more

Home page: https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de

Note

The section below assumes you are an employee of the Max Planck Society.

9.1. Features

• Keeper provides disk space (in the cloud and provided by the Max Planck Digital Library), that can be archived.

• Data is organised into Libraries (i.e. top level folders represent libraries)

• For long-term archival, Libraries can be assigned metadata and a DOI (see below).

• An overview of all the libraries is available through a web browser at the keeper home page (https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de)

• Keeper allows upload of large files or directories

• Keeper allows cloud synchronisation of data with local machine

• Access to librariers with other MPG researchers can be managed through Sharing Libraries or Folders

• Subdirectories and files and can be made available publicly through a share link

• Sharing is possible with MPG researchers and external collaborators

• Libraries can be turned into archives and

• DOIs can be created if desired

• Data will be archived for at least 10 years (see “Cared Data Committment”)

• provides a “Cared Data Certificate”

• Use as Google-docs alternative for real time collaborative document authoring

9.2. Keeper use cases

9.2.1. 1. Long term archival

You can upload data to Keeper into a “Library”, create a Cared Data Certificate and receive a DOI for that version of the data in the “Library”. This Library is the archive. At the URL associated with the DOI, metadata about the archive is available (but not the data: Keeper does not publish data sets [by default]).

9.2.2. 2. (Cloud based) Backup of active files

Similar to Owncloud, Dropbox, and other services, Keeper (with the Seafile client) can be used to have a local copy of files syncronised with a copy in the cloud (serving as a backup), and mechanism to syncronise the data across multiple client machines (if required, for example synchronise Desktop and Laptop).

9.2.3. 3. Sharing data with others

Keeper Libraries can be shared privately with collaborators (inside and outside the Max Planck Society). Alternatively, folders can be made readable worldwide (via URL with hash).

9.2.4. All of the above

Keeper’s model is to archive the way you work: backup, synchronisation and collaboration are useful during active data analysis. The final set of files can be conveniently archived (and a DOI assigned) when required.

9.3. Quota (data size)

The amount of storage for each user is 1TB (by default).

Quota is counted by looking at the size of the libraries associated to the owner of the libraries. Each library has exactly one owner.

By sharing libraries with others, this does not contribute to the data quote of the others.

Keeper is not designed to archive significantly larger amounts of data. (As of Jan 2021.)

9.4. Getting started

Important

• Keeper home page URL: https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de - shows some documentation links while logged out - shows overview of libraries and files in browser when logged in

• Additional documentation at https://mpdl.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/360001234340-Keeper

• One needs to subscribe to use the service and define a new password that is required to connect the SeaFile or SeaDrive clients to Keeper, or when logging in to the Keeper home page (https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de)

• Download Keeper client software for local storage (Seafile)

9.5. Libraries

KEEPER organises files into ‘libraries’. Each library can be synced and shared separately. One personal library is created on sign-up. You can create more libraries later.

9.6. Getting data into KEEPER (SeaFile)

The web interface at https://keeper.mpdl.mpg.de allows to see all the data in keeper, including libraries, shared libraries, all the directory structures and files.

More convenient access is realised through the Seafile Desktop Syncing Clients.

9.6.1. SeaFile

SeaFile can be used to upload files (or whole directories) from the local storage system to Keeper, or to download files from keeper to the local machine.

It is also possible to ‘sync’ local folders with those in Keeper: any change in one of the files on the local machine will (in the background) be repeated in Keeper’s storage.

This is convenient to have a synchronised copy of the data at a different location, while working on the data.

Caution

SeaFile will synchronise changes between your computer and the remote copy in Keeper including deletions.

If you want to delete your local copy to free the space on your local machine but not destroy the copy in Keeper you need to first “unsync” the folders. For more information see the help page at MPDL for unsync

9.6.2. SeaDrive

The SeaDrive client enables you to access files on the server without syncing to local disk. It works like a network drive. In our tests this did not work as stable as the SeaFile client, and usage of SeaFile is recommended (as of Jan 2021).

Note

Experience reports are welcome regarding practical data upload and synchronisation.

9.7. Notifications

Email notifications about changed files can be requested (for example to be sent every day, or every 4 hours). This can be helpful when working on a shared library.

9.8. Sharing a library

Sharing a library is a two stage process:

1. Get the person you want to share with to join Keeper. You can send them an invitee (Invite People)

2. Once the person has joined, select the share symbol in the list of My Libraries, and then select “Share to user”.

9.9. About the Keeper Service

Useful summary on “About Keeper page”

9.10. What about publishing research data sets with publications? (Keeper and Edmond)

For publication of research data sets, Edmond is the recommended MPG service (see also Edmond – open research data repository).

Keeper is for [private] archival of data, Edmond for [public] publication of data.

9.11. Usage experience

Please share your observations! (Contact)