What is an enterprise asset repository?
Broadly defined, an enterprise digital-asset repository manages large collections of rich media, information, and knowledge assets, enabling a variety of knowledge workers to find, retrieve, edit or amend, or route files to another knowledge worker or group.
LARGE MULTIMEDIA DATABASE
Broadly defined, an enterprise digital-asset repository manages large collections of rich media, information, and knowledge assets, enabling a variety of knowledge workers to find, retrieve, edit or amend, or route files to another knowledge worker or group.
The term rich connotes a complex file type that may contain multiple structures (color, complex layouts, typographic design), motion graphics (video, audio, or animation), and large quantities of data (megabyte and gigabyte-size files).
ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS
An enterprise asset repository augments the functions of data warehouses, document management systems, and Web content managers—characterized in the figure below as legacy data sources.
Data warehouses typically manage structured information— rows and columns of data extracted from production data and financial reporting systems, including ERP, supply-chain management, distribution, and eCommerce systems.
Document management systems capture and store business records, digitized images, and documents, organizing them for structured workflows or ad hoc retrieval by an authorized knowledge worker.
Web content managers enable multiple contributors to create, route, approve, and publish Web pages and graphics to corporate websites, intranets, enterprise portals, and eCommerce systems. Many large and small firms have deployed one or two of these enterprise systems, investing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.
Enterprise DAM repositories often represent the final, missing piece for an end-to-end solution for multichannel commerce and interactive web services. These repositories facilitate systematic reuse and reexpression of digital files, enabling a firm to express its brand voice across multiple channels and facilitate its knowledge workers in obtaining answers to their questions (requests for information, experience, or interaction from other knowledge workers).
CRITICAL ELEMENTS
Middleware plays an important role: it supplies the glue for integrating multiple legacy data sources and a variety of browser accessible Web services. Most digital asset repositories use a relational database management system (RDBMS) for managing descriptive labels—metadata describing the digital asset.