25 years of Archivista: Visionary, then and now

Egg, January 10, 2023: For once, the year in review will not take place until the new year. The blogs from 2022 provide plenty of information about the innovations in our solutions. At this point I would rather make a few comments about the ArchivistaBox. After all, in 2023 the Archivista solution will be able to look back on 25 years of company history.

What began in 1998 as a written archive…

At the end of the last millennium, it became apparent that computers would have considerable computing capacity and storage capacity in the future. At that time, digital archives were — at best — the domain of medium-sized or large companies and corporations. SMEs were left behind, give or take.

Nevertheless, the digitization of data was on the horizon. It is true that almost all processes ended up with a printout on paper. However, receipts and documents could already be stored electronically at that time with reasonable effort.

One of the most important reasons why Archivista saw the light of day was that, unlike other solutions, all documents were virtually photographed. In a test report in a well-known computer magazine at the time, there was even talk of the documents being “mothballed”.

Guaranteed data retention for decades

After all, it is precisely thanks to this concept that 25 years later it is possible to keep all archived data available without restrictions and without plug-ins. If you want to open a Word file from the 90s of the last century today, you cannot expect that, for example, the character sets of that time can be displayed correctly.

The “photographing” process still makes it possible today to ensure that documents can be viewed in digital form in the same way as the data was captured. This does not seem to be particularly groundbreaking. However, on closer inspection, this is by no means a matter of course. After all, it should be noted here that the ArchivistaBox offers backwards compatibility for 25 years. And this should also be mentioned here, over 25 years we have offered a constant price and product policy. A look at our web museum (only in german) is welcome as “proof”.

Over the last few years, the multimedia capabilities of the ArchivistaBox have been massively expanded and refined. Today, solutions can be operated with the ArchivistaBox in which not only millions of pages can be archived, but audio and film material can also be managed to the same extent.

Autonomous solutions offer a plus in security

Just the last few years show well and good, Constance is not primarily a focus of the information technology industry. Solutions and technologies come and go. What seemed unthinkable ten years ago is now considered standard. For example, it no longer seems central — even among SMEs — whether a solution operates autonomously, i.e., without a permanent connection to the Internet.

The required services are now widely distributed all over the world. As much as the new possibilities enable location-independent work, as soon as one cog in the system stops working, entire computer worlds — and thus all solutions based on them — come to a standstill.

Technical defects (i.e., bugs) do not even have to be the cause of problems. Currently, our modern civil society has reached a point where even the “juice” (i.e., the available electricity) is running out. Electricity as a commodity suddenly costs factors more. No one can say with certainty what effects an acute power shortage will have on our economy and society.

However, one thing seems clear. Solutions that run self-sufficiently are likely to have a much easier time in “uncertain” times. Our ArchivistaBox systems run quickly even on the most modest hardware and completely independently of whether the Internet stutters or even fails.

Autonomous systems run, even if the Internet “goes down

In recent years, it has been observed that many software packages only work in conjunction with services on the network. The flexibility of such solutions may be tempting. However, with the ArchivistaBox we have deliberately ensured that our solutions work autonomously. This ensures that the runnability and therefore the integrity of the data remains with the customer at all times.

The ArchivistaBox is designed to be so simple and fail-safe that it can also be operated by pure users without any problems. The fact that the ArchivistaBox includes the underlying operating system means that there is an autonomy which would not or could not exist if the ArchivistaBox were delivered as a pure software solution.

Think global, work local

And this aspect should also be briefly mentioned here, the entire development of the ArchivistaBox takes place in Switzerland and all the technologies used for it are realized with open source technology.

20 years ago the Archivista solution was smiled at in some places and the Redmont company even saw open source as a cancer that had to be demonized at all costs. Today, open source has long since found its way into all industries and solutions.

However, the question sometimes arises as to what remains of open source when the services are fundamentally interlinked with (proprietary) cloud services. As much as the Internet provides valuable services as a standard, services are built around it that are neither transparent nor capable of running on their own.

The ArchivistaBox, on the other hand, initially runs as a standalone solution. At the same time, as a completely web-based solution, the ArchivistaBox offers the same convenience as a cloud solution, simply locally and globally at the same time.

ArchivistaCloud free of charge for all

This does not have to be a contradiction, anyone who registers via our store will receive their personal ArchivistaBox cloud instance directly and right now.After registration, both ArchivistaDMS and ArchivistaERP are ready to work without any further obligation. The instances can be used for testing as well as for productive operation. The maximum size of the database is 20 GByte, one user can work per instance.

The question remains, is ArchivistaCloud also available as a commercial product? The answer is no. Firstly, in our opinion, there are enough providers offering virtual servers and secondly, we do not have the capacity for this. We would like to continue to invest our resources in what we do best, producing an all-round perfect ArchivistaBox.

At this point I would also like to thank all our loyal customers, without whom the ArchivistaBox would not or could not exist. The direct line to the users is one of the most valuable assets of our solution. I look forward to maintaining and living this exchange today and in the future. In this sense, here’s to a pleasant collaboration over the next 25 years.

Equally, all those who do not yet have an ArchivistaBox in use are invited to get in touch with us. Whether this is in the context of an OpenFriday, by e-mail or by telephone on +41 44 350 05 60, any contact is always welcome.

Urs Pfister, Managing Director Archivista GmbH