Transactional archiving of an electronic document

Various methods and apparatus are described for archiving of an electronic document between multiple interconnected archive units of a distributed server network in geographically-dispersed locations in order to store identical copies of the electronic document at the same time. An archival portal server in the distributed server network sends a five-step, two-phase commit protocol to a selected set of two or more transaction manager instances resident on remote archive units. The archival system reconciles if an error occurs between a start of a transmission of the electronic document and a permanent archiving of that electronic document, or the electronic document is stored in a permanent data storage location within each of the archive units at an end of the two-phase commit protocol making archiving of an electronic document to multiple locations an atomic operation.