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Arca Service Support

Arca annual service support fees cover the yearly costs of centralised coordination, software hosting and support, and costs associated with governance, administration, and communications. Service support fees are assessed and confirmed on an annual basis by the Arca Advisory Committee. The BC ELN fiscal year runs from April 1 to March 31.

Following are details regarding Arca fees for BC ELN Partner Libraries and for Members of Non-BC ELN Consortia.

Fees for BC ELN Partner Libraries

Service Support: The 2024/25 Arca service support fee is $5,795, which covers:

Set-up: Initial set-up costs are covered by BC ELN for BC ELN partner libraries.

Additional storage: Additional storage can be purchased in 500 GB blocks at an additional $380 per year ($0.76/GB/year). Storage charges are invoiced annually with the Arca Service Support Fee. Mid-year storage increases are charged pro-rata, and may be invoiced at the time or added to the next year's membership invoice.

Example: Institution X wishes to purchase 350 GB of additional storage in September 2023 in preparation for a Fall digitization project. They alert the Arca Admin Centre, which confirms the availability of the storage and the cost. In April 2025, Institution X receives an Arca invoice for:

  • 2022/23 Arca Service Support Fee: ~$5,795
  • Additional storage cost for September 1, 2023 - March 31, 2024: $380 (one 500 GB block)  x 7/12 months = $222 
  • Additional storage cost for April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025: $380 (one 500 GB block) x 1 year = $380
  • Total invoice: $6,397

Advanced Support: Arca participating sites will be charged on a cost-recovery basis for Administrative Centre work exceeding basic support (e.g. complex migrations of content, in-depth metadata analysis, and site-specific troubleshooting) that requires more than 10 hours of Admin Centre staff time or more than 4 hours of assistance from discoverygarden. Sites will be alerted before any advanced support work is embarked upon.

Withdrawal: In the event of withdrawal from Arca, participating sites must provide written 30-day notice and a withdrawal fee, which is dependent on the manner and format of content export and based on a quote from discoverygarden.

Fees for Members of Non-BC ELN Consortia

NOTE: To ensure Arca remains sustainable, a single Arca invoice will be issued to each consortium for all its Arca participants, itemised per institution.

Set-up: There is a one-time set-up fee of $1,000 upon joining the service to cover Arca Admin Centre and discoverygarden costs for child site set-up.

Service Support: Members of non-BC ELN consortia that have been approved by the Arca Advisory Committee and have met the requirements for participation as described in the Arca Benefits & Responsibilities, pay the same annual service support fee as BC ELN partner libraries.

Additional storage: Members of non-BC ELN consortia pay the same storage costs as BC ELN partner libraries.

Advanced Support: Arca participating sites will be charged on a cost-recovery basis for Administrative Centre work exceeding basic support (e.g. complex migrations of content, in-depth metadata analysis, and site-specific troubleshooting) that requires more than 10 hours of Admin Centre staff time or more than 4 hours of assistance from discoverygarden. Sites will be alerted before any advanced support work is embarked upon.

Withdrawal: In the event of withdrawal from Arca, participating sites must provide written 30-day notice and a withdrawal fee, which is dependent on the manner and format of content export and based on a quote from discoverygarden.

Loupe

Sites that participate in Loupe share their repository with other organizations, and have an initial storage allowance of 50 GB.

Service Support: The 2024/25 fee for Loupe participants is $2,100.

Advanced support, additional storage, and withdrawal fees and conditions are the same as above.

Hosting and Data Storage

Arca is hosted in the Simon Fraser University (SFU) Cloud, a state-of-the-art hosting facility located in the SFU Data Centre at the Burnaby campus in Burnaby, B.C. The cost of storage in Arca is the amount set by SFU Cloud; the Arca service does not charge any additional fees for storage.

Hosting in the SFU Cloud allows Arca to take advantage of SFU’s high-bandwidth network, advanced data protection, and highly skilled IT professionals; and to leverage the monetary benefits of running infrastructure at scale with the favourable pricing granted to educational institutions.

SFU Cloud is a highly redundant and reliable environment that is in-line with the SFU Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plan. Arca is backed up daily to an off-site facility, and backups are retained according to a retention schedule. For more information: https://www.sfu.ca/information-systems/services/sfu-cloud.html

Since the Arca platform is also supported by Canadian firm discoverygarden, an Islandora service provider located in Prince Edward Island, hosting Arca locally in BC means that all Arca operations, software, support and hosting are in Canada, compliant with BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy legislation.

 

Questions about the Arca fees? Contact the Arca Administrative Centre.