Press Release

British Public Record Office Awards FileTek UK Storage Contract for Digital Archive- FileTek's StorHouse Product to Manage Digital Repository

Rockville, MD (March 17, 2003) - FileTek UK Ltd., a data management software developer and subsidiary of FileTek, Inc., announced today that it has been selected by the Public Record Office (PRO), the British national archives, to provide a storage system that will support the PRO's digital preservation work. The system will be based on the company's StorHouse® software product. This was the second agreement awarded to FileTek by the British government. The Met Office (the British weather service) previously awarded a contract for similar software technology to support its scientific research.

The PRO, which holds the United Kingdom's government and law court records from the eleventh century onwards, determined that it needed a way to archive the ubiquitous electronic documents produced today and in the future. The system, which is scheduled to begin service in 14 days, will support a new digital archive containing diverse files such as e-mails and their attachments, web site images, video clips, and sound files. StorHouse will manage the digital files in the repository, which is archived on high-speed, high-capacity tape cartridges. Data on the cartridges is accessible through a web interface that provides timely access and retrieval to requested information.

"As each year passes, more critical government records and legal documents are produced and stored in various electronic files," said David Ryan, the Pro's Head of Digital Preservation. "Now we will have a way to preserve this history in its native format for future generations, much like our predecessors did for us. We very much appreciate FileTek's help and contribution in supporting this critical PRO objective, as we know that large scale data storage and retrieval is key to the PRO digital archive, which must be capable of massive scalability, possibly into the 100s of terabytes."

"FileTek is very pleased to be working with the PRO on this important and prestigious project," said Ann Dyball, FileTek UK's Regional Area Manager. "We are gratified by the Pro's confidence in our software and expertise and look forward to working together for many years to come."

For the PRO installation, FileTek's Relational File System (RFS) technology will be used with StorHouse. This technology allows StorHouse to archive hundreds of millions of files and relationally access them.