jARC (job-Archive) is a system that aims to keep the files that we produce or save on disk for our business for a long time. Conservation is not limited to physical storage, but concerns itself with their intelligibility and future use on systems other than the current one.

jARC uses the concept of job, that is an activity that, both for manual explanation and for a configurable condition: presence of a file or stable filling of a directory, declares to have consolidated and therefore keep a collection of files.
Each job is described with context information: Customer, Object, Type, Notes. Its creation involves the configurable predisposition of folders and production of events, such as the production of a JDF (Job Definition Format) file with possible processing methods.
Upon the occurrence of the conclusion event (total or partial), jARC tracks all the files relevant to the processing and inserts them in its own archive that operates as Buffer, enriching them with the address of the sources and their directories, date, size, format, etc.
Since files can be very large, jARC creates one-time low-resolution previews, or thumbnails, of image files or the first page of documents with a task in the background.

By inserting blank media (CR, DVD, DVD-DL, Blu-Ray) into a burning device, jARC automatically checks whether there is enough material in the buffer to fill the media (e.g. 80%) and, if so, seeks the optimal distribution of jobs on the media (ie the jobs that maximize their fill) so as not to break a job across multiple media if possible.
If a job occupies more than one media size in the Buffer, for example 7GB with 4.5GB DVD media, it dedicates a media set specifically for that job.

Once one or more jobs have been completely burned, the system expects, if not configured otherwise, to delete the related files from the sources, in order to keep the disk clean and not degrade the performance of the related servers. The files can be deleted as they are certainly available both on the Buffer and on a support.

Once the support has been extracted, inserting another blank one, the system proceeds with the burning of a copy identical to the previous one, and this for the preset number of successive copies.

jARC allows you to search locally or remotely with a web interface and to view relevant jobs, consult previews or download individual files directly via the web.
Regardless, however, of the size of the disk system in use, inevitably with the passage of time, the occupation of the Buffer tends to fill its disk system, so jARC automatically removes the files of the oldest processes stored on at least double support from the Buffer. . Only at that point the download of a working file emptied of content will require the recovery of its support.

The user can then insert the media on the central server and request a restore of all the job files on the Buffer, possibly followed by their repositioning on the directors and servers of the sources from which they were taken. In the latter case, if the servers are no longer available, it is possible to automatically divert addresses that are no longer supported to new addresses and director names.

However, the user can directly insert the support on his own workstation and directly address the content as the first file of each support is an index in HTML format with all the links to the jobs contained therein and, within it, to each file, accompanied by the date, size, source, directory, etc.

The peculiar characteristic of jARC is to memorize, on each support, the map of all the supports. The map is saved on a compressed XML file.
In case of breakdown or disaster, any media contains, in addition to its own files, the entire inventory in compressed XML format of the entire collection and therefore allows you to restore it on another server and continue the subsequent processing, filling the Buffer of the new server also as a request comes in on a previous job.

jARC was born on the Mac OSX platform, later ported to Linux and Windows.

Utility sectors of jARC:
All those who institutionally and regularly produce jobs with file occupations that cannot be managed with human initiative with order, certainty and in an economic way:
Typographies / Printing (customer file, workflow file, plate raster, etc.)
Production centers (processing products and semi-finished products)
Laboratories (batch files)
and not only…

See the brochure for printing companies.