With SIARD (Software Independent Archiving of Relational Databases), the Swiss Federal Archives (SFA) provides a sustainable solution for the long-term preservation of relational databases. This includes an open format for archiving of relational databases as well as a software package - "SIARD Suite" - for converting relational databases into the SIARD format. SIARD Suite is based on international standards such as XML, SQL:1999 and UNICODE. At present the application supports the following databases: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server und Microsoft Access. The Swiss Federal Archives distributes the SIARD Suite free of charge, according to the license agreement. database preservation. preservation of databases.