title: DEVELOPING INFRASTRUCTURAL SOFTWARE FOR PRESERVATION:  REFLECTIONS OF LESSONS LEARNED DEVELOPING THE PLANETS  TESTBED
creators: Matthew Barr, Brian Aitken Seamus Ross Andrew Lindley Matthew Barr
abstract: The Planets Testbed, a key outcome of the EC co-funded
  Planets project, is a web based application that provides
  a controlled environment where users can perform experiments
  on a variety of preservation tools using sample data
  and a standardised yet configurable experiment methodology.
  Development of the Testbed required the close
  participation of many geographically and strategically disparate
  organisations throughout the four-year duration of
  the project, and this paper aims to reflect on a number
  of key lessons that were learned whilst developing software
  for digital preservation experimentation. In addition
  to giving an overview of the Testbed and its evolution,
  this paper describes the iterative development process that
  was adopted, presents a set of key challenges faced when
  developing preservation software in a distributed manner,
  and offers a real-world example of how lessons can be
  learned from these challenges.