Nine PBS, a PBS station in St. Louis, Missouri, has been granted access to its 70-year archive of cultural artifacts, which was lost when its cloud storage vendor, Open Source Storage, went out of business. A judge ruled this week that Iron Mountain, the data center company hosting the archive, must cooperate with Nine PBS to retrieve the data. The archive, which includes TV shows, videos, photos, and other digital cultural objects relevant to St. Louis' history, was trapped after Open Source Storage cut off access immediately when it failed to renew its contract with Nine PBS.
The situation began to unfold in March, when Nine PBS learned that Open Source Storage would not be renewing its contract. Instead of providing the station with 30 days to retrieve the archive, Open Source Storage cut off access, prompting Nine PBS to seek help from Iron Mountain. Although Iron Mountain had physically hosted the data for Open Source Storage, the company refused to hand over the data, citing its contract with OSS rather than Nine PBS. This led Nine PBS to pursue legal action, resulting in the judge's ruling that Iron Mountain must cooperate in retrieving the data.
A spokesperson for Iron Mountain stated that the company has acted appropriately and responsibly in safeguarding customer data and honoring its contractual commitments to OSS. However, the judge's ruling has established a path forward for Nine PBS to access and recover its archival materials, which the court confirmed the station rightfully owns. According to Nine PBS VP and CCO Leah Freeman, the station appreciates the court's thoughtful decision and is hopeful about recovering its digital archive.
The incident highlights the importance of a safer approach to data storage, such as following the "3-2-1 rule." This rule recommends keeping three copies of each file across two different mediums, with one copy kept offsite. By following this rule, organizations can ensure that they have backups in case their cloud storage provider goes out of business or their physical drive dies, and can protect against data loss in the event of a disaster.
The judge's ruling has also ordered Nine PBS to identify a third-party vendor who can help access the data from Iron Mountain's data center, ensuring that the process does not harm data from other OSS clients. If the process of retrieving the data proves to be more complicated, another hearing will be scheduled. For now, Nine PBS is on its way to hopefully saving its digital archive, and the incident serves as a reminder of the importance of careful data storage and management.
