Enhancing Resilience and Reliability for the ORCID Registry
As a seasoned IT professional, I’ve witnessed the constant evolution of technology infrastructure and the importance of adaptability in the digital age. One such transformative journey is the recent migration of the ORCID Registry to Amazon Web Services (AWS), a strategic move that promises to strengthen the resilience and reliability of this critical platform.
ORCID, the non-profit organization dedicated to providing unique digital identifiers for researchers and scholars, has long been a trailblazer in the academic and scientific community. Its robust registry serves as a central hub for researchers to establish their professional identities, connect their work, and collaborate across disciplines. However, with the rapid growth of the ORCID ecosystem and the increasing demands on its infrastructure, the organization recognized the need to explore new hosting solutions that could offer enhanced scalability, security, and disaster recovery capabilities.
Embracing the Power of Cloud Computing
In 2023, ORCID embarked on a strategic initiative to migrate the ORCID Registry to the AWS cloud platform. This transition, which was completed in January 2024, represents a significant milestone in ORCID’s ongoing efforts to future-proof its technology infrastructure and better serve its global user base.
“After 10 months of very careful preparation, we moved the hosting of the ORCID Registry to Amazon Web Services, and there are a whole range of benefits with that,” said Will Simpson, Director of Technology at ORCID. “We’re already much more resilient to outages, and we continue to work on security and resilience.”
The decision to migrate to AWS was driven by several key factors:
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Improved Resilience and Disaster Recovery: By leveraging AWS’s distributed data centers and availability zones, ORCID can now ensure that its web services continue to operate seamlessly even in the event of a technical outage or disruption at a single hosting facility. This marked improvement in redundancy and failover capabilities significantly reduces the risk of service interruptions for ORCID’s users.
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Enhanced Security and Compliance: AWS’s comprehensive suite of security and compliance features, including advanced data encryption, access controls, and regulatory certifications, align with ORCID’s commitment to safeguarding the privacy and integrity of its registry data.
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Scalability and Flexibility: The scalable nature of the AWS cloud platform allows ORCID to easily adjust its computing resources and storage capacity to meet the growing demands of its user community. This flexibility enables the organization to respond quickly to spikes in activity or the introduction of new features and functionality.
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Reduced Infrastructure Management: By outsourcing the hosting and maintenance of its core registry to AWS, ORCID can shift its focus from managing servers and infrastructure to delivering enhanced services and value-added features for researchers and member organizations.
Harnessing AWS-Managed Services
As part of the migration process, ORCID has already begun leveraging various AWS-managed services to optimize the performance and reliability of the ORCID Registry. One such example is the implementation of AWS Elasticache for in-memory distributed caching, which has resulted in improved response times for both the user interface and APIs.
“We are already using AWS Elasticache for in-memory distributed caching in the Registry to improve performance in the UI and APIs,” Simpson explained. “We are currently working toward using AWS Relational Database Service to reduce recovery time in the event of a failure of our core Registry database.”
By embracing these AWS-managed services, ORCID can reduce the administrative overhead associated with traditional database management and focus on enhancing the overall user experience for its growing community of researchers.
Strengthening Trust and Integrity
The migration to AWS is not merely a technical exercise for ORCID; it is a strategic initiative that reinforces the organization’s commitment to trust and integrity. As the ORCID Registry serves as a critical hub for researchers to establish their professional identities and connect their scholarly activities, maintaining the highest levels of reliability and data security is of paramount importance.
“Ultimately, the migration to AWS will make it easier for ORCID to reduce risks, improve resilience, and spend more resources improving our services and functionality for researchers and members,” Simpson said.
By investing in the resilience and reliability of its core infrastructure, ORCID is positioning itself to better serve the evolving needs of the global research community. As the organization continues to explore and leverage the capabilities of the AWS cloud platform, researchers can rest assured that their ORCID records and associated data will be safeguarded with the utmost care and diligence.
Embracing the Future with Confidence
The migration of the ORCID Registry to AWS represents a significant milestone in the organization’s journey to enhance the resilience and reliability of its critical infrastructure. By leveraging the power of cloud computing and embracing AWS-managed services, ORCID is not only improving its disaster recovery and security capabilities but also freeing up valuable resources to focus on delivering enhanced services and functionality to its growing user base.
As an experienced IT professional, I applaud ORCID’s proactive approach to addressing the evolving needs of the research community. By spreading the risk across multiple data centers and harnessing the scalability and flexibility of the AWS cloud, ORCID is positioning itself to maintain the trust and integrity that are the hallmarks of its registry.
For researchers and organizations seeking to establish and maintain their professional identities, the ORCID Registry, now bolstered by the robust infrastructure of AWS, offers a reliable and secure platform to connect their work and collaborate with peers worldwide. As the IT Fix blog, we are excited to see how ORCID’s migration to the cloud will continue to shape the future of research and scholarly communication.
To learn more about ORCID’s commitment to trust and integrity, I encourage you to visit the ORCID Trust page. And for the latest updates on ORCID’s strategic initiatives, including the 2023 Annual Report, please visit the ORCID information site.
