Thanks a lot for your replies, Tim and John.
John, with "you don't actually have to redo the source data mappings or metadata if you create a Darwin Core Archive from the original data", you mean an archive containing not only metadata, but also all our database data?
Or perhaps this kind of file may content not a database dump, but a copy of the database type, db server address, db user/password, db fields mapping to DwC and so on?
I am mostly interested in serving herbarium data (preserved specimens). So, are we talking of a small file size (mostly filled in with institution and collection metadata, but not with specimens data) or a huge file (containing a static copy of all our specimen labels)?
Since our data are highly dynamic, the second file will soon be outdated. So I am mostly interested if the first option is possible (a small IPT backup file, not for backing up all our data, just backing up the IPT installation/metadata).
Perhaps there is an example of such a "backup IPT installation archive" I can see somewhere? Or instructions on howto create it
Thanks