Digital Asset Management - NOT an IT Infrastructure Issue
Digital Asset Management - NOT an IT Infrastructure Issue
June 29th, 2006: Leading digital asset management (DAM) advocate rattles the foundations of thinking into implementing DAM systems.
Speaking to IDM in the lead up to the Digital Asset Management Asia Pacific conference (27th-29th August), Ricky Patten, managing director of Databasics gave us a sneak preview of this 'Top Ten Mistakes in DAM' speech. His top-line finding will cause some disquiet with anybody currently scoping a system.
"Almost definitely in the Top 10, is that DAM is not a IT infrastructure project," explained Patten. "Many companies tend to see DAM as a variant of a network storage/RDBMS project. One of the ongoing themes I've heard during my research has been along the lines of, 'We have Oracle, we'll get you a new SAN...what else do you need?'.
"Another really common mistake in this area is a total underestimation of the file type/size commonly involved in a DAM project versus the 'normal' document type across the entire company. DAM is commonly managing rich media files (graphical, movie, PDF) the sizes of which are ranging through 10-100 megabytes each). Compare this to Office or plain-text fikes of 10-100 kilobytes and you get an idea of the scale of difference in what is required to manage these. As a result the IT infrastructure created for DAM - for the most part, that's SAN storage - is totally used up within a short period of time. 10 days from specific example from start of project!
"My research has thrown up some basic misunderstandings in the subject - and in some cases actual misinformation. Naming no names, but one based its entire Top 10 "DAM Project Failures" on costing and online purchasing procedures for photos; now then a "photo library" is one thing, and it's not DAM as the "M" stands for management.
Another of my Top 10 is confusing DAM for related projects/procedures that might feed off DAM...but are not themselves DAM. So it is obvious from some basic web searches that the available material is often very misconceived. DAM is a new concept industry and there is still a learning stage to go through".