The Reactome consortium and host institutions OICR, EMBL-EBI, NYU and OHSU are committed to the long-term development and maintenance of the Reactome database.

Reactome data, code and tools are robustly safeguarded by many levels of backup:

The Reactome dataset is replicated across two independent servers hosted by AWS. We store our legacy data for each release in an AWS Simple Storage System (S3) bucket, allowing regeneration and remounting of the database or rollback to earlier versions if necessary. Work is underway to make this data available to the public via a Request Review system. The Extract Transform Load pipeline used to generate releases can regenerate parts of the production system as necessary. Reactome is Dockerizing all components of the architecture and offloading computational tasks to AWS services. Zabbix monitors all major services hosted on our servers. Multiple personnel across the host institutions have the expertise required to restore services and regenerate the Reactome website.

Access to Reactome content:

In addition to the backup of Reactome content described above, Reactome data and resources are also available for direct download from our website “Download” page, from our GitHub repository (Reactome and Reactome-PWP), and indirectly from aggregators of Reactome data including NCBI, EMBL-EBI, MSigDB and WikiPathways.

Long-term preservation plan:

Reactome has a 20+ year history of stable funding from varied sources, providing stability and continuity. In recognition of its value to the bioinformatics community and its long-term stability, Reactome has been recognized as an ELIXIR Core Data Resource and as a Global Core Biodata Resource. 

In the unlikely event that Reactome were to lose funding or otherwise cease operating, existing content and tools would be preserved in the latest format on the public website if possible and would persist independently in other resources that make use of Reactome content such as WikiPathways and GO-CAM models. Reactome source code is preserved and available on GitHub. 

Reactome is developing a long-term data preservation plan that will see Reactome content and infrastructure housed with an archiving service such as Zenodo. In case of funding loss, archived content will include the full data schema and internal process documents such as the Reactome Curation Guide and the User’s Guide, ensuring future interpretability and reusability of stored digital content.