Extending the Hydra Head to Create a Pluggable, Extensible Architecture: Diving into the Technology of Hydramata

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Fedora Interest Group Presentations

What makes for a flexible, extensible architecture? The complexity of our Digital Repository, Institutional Repository, and research data needs were pushing the limits of our existing systems. Faced with decreased resources and ever increasing demands for flexibility, interoperability, and extensibility, we realized we could not solve our problems alone. As members of the Hydra community, we were already addressing this problem to some degree. However, many Hydra partners were also utilizing aging Institutional Repository systems, or maintaining a variety of Digital Repository applications that do not interoperate well. As a result, six institutions within the Hydra community banded together to form a cross-institutional team of subject matter experts, developers, librarians, project directors, and product owners focused on further extending Hydra to create a more sustainable and flexible digital platform that moves beyond the Institutional Repository, while not sacrificing sustainability for innovation. If you are a repository manager, developer, or anyone else faced with these challenges come for a deeper look at our architecture decisions and tools.