Introduction

A digital asset management system uses a suite of applications linked together to provide a seamless experience to the user. It is not just a piece of shrink-wrap software that can be used straight out of the box. Rather it is a collection of many components that have been carefully selected to meet the needs and budgets of the enterprise. The system should also have links to existing software applications: accounts, customer records, and planning systems. To maximise the operational benefits, it is advantageous for these applications to exchange data with the digital asset management. Like any enterprise-wide deployment of software, much of the installation costs will be for the professional services. These are usually required to merge the many stand-alone applications into a seamless operating environment, and to customise the business logic to suit the needs of the customer.

This list details some of the components in a typical installation:

• Content repository

• Digital asset management application

• Databases

• Search engine

• Indexing workstations

• Rights management application

• Web portal.

The complete digital asset management system is rarely the product of a single vendor. Most partner with specialists for services like the search engine, video logging, speech recognition, and the underlying database management system (DBMS). The core digital asset management acts like a glue. It binds all these functions together using the business rules. The users see a unitary view of all the systems assembled at the presentation layer.

This modular approach allows the best-of-breed solutions to be used, and should retain...